Malacaņang on Sunday expressed support for the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) initiative to position the Philippines as an alternative educational destination where neighboring countries could send their overflow student populations.

In his weekly column, The View from the Palace, Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said if the "education tourism" strategy catches fire, "we have CHED Chair Lito Puno to thank."

Puno discussed the blueprint of the commission’s "educational tourism" during the NBN 4 television weekly program, "The Cabinet Speaks," last Thursday evening.

The CHED program seeks "to position the Philippines as an alternative education destination to China or Russia where most Korean students normally go" and complement the government’s tourist promotion program.

Bunye explained that Manila is an "attractive alternative" destination for Korean students because of three main factors: the short distance between Seoul and Manila, the affordability of Philippine education, and the Filipinos’ fluency in English.

Already, an estimated 100,000 South Korean students are enrolled in various private and state-run colleges and universities in the country.

"Soon, even Chinese and Indian students are expected to arrive," according to Bunye.

The Philippine government and China’s Ministry of Education have signed recently a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) "allowing Chinese students who could not be accommodated in China’s universities to study in the Philippines."

"Chinese students find it very attractive to study here, considering that they would be paying only half the price ($1,000 per semester in the Philippines compared to $2,000 per semester in China)," Bunye added.

Aside from Koreans, about 1,600 students from India are expected to enroll in Philippine colleges and universities this September.

"First, it was medical tourism. Now, another emerging trend is educational tourism," Bunye pointed out.

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Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye on Sunday underscored the need to raise the level of the country’s educational system to world standards.

"With the start of the new school year, attention has turned once again to the President’s initiatives in education," Bunye said in his weekly column, The View from the Palace.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s "initiatives in education" target the four education levels -- daycare, grade school, high school and college-- with specific plans and programs for development.

These initiatives are encapsulated in her 2004-2010 Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP).

"One such initiative is the standardization of pre-schools and daycare centers because it has been shown that those who go to daycare (centers) are the ones who do not drop out from school," Bunye said.

Hardest-hit by classroom shortages are grade schools throughout the country. Under the President’s MTPDP, the number of classrooms to be built every year was placed at 6,000.

Bunye said that steps are being undertaken to strengthen the teaching of math, science and English subjects at the grade and high school levels.

"Particular attention is being given to training a new generation of teachers who did not grow up speaking English but Taglish," he said.

At the college level, Bunye said "it is very critical now to ensure that our graduates have the right skills for the available jobs," as he noted the mismatch between the number of available jobs and the number of jobseekers who can actually fill them.

"Our country’s remaining unemployment is due in part to a structural unemployment component, which means that jobs are available but the candidates are not trained for them," Bunye said.

"This goes hand-in-hand with the government’s ladderized education program whereby students of technical-vocational courses can earn credits that may be applied to college degree programs, and vice versa," he pointed out.

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