Studying in the Philippines

Hi. Most universities here in the Philippines have English as its main language of instruction. As for university or college recommendations, it really depends on what particular field you want to take. In general, the top universities in the PH are University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo, and La Salle. Tuition fees vary, depending on the institution and the course/program.

if it was my son our daughter i wood strongly advise to go to Belgium, germany ,the netherlands ,the UK or one of the scandinavian countrys to study as the education is top quality and the diplomas are valid all over the world .i do not say this lightly as i have seen the education here from up close by reading study books from familie members who are studying here and i have seen that education, from basic to university level ,needs serious to "upgrade"
to give an example ,nurses who get a job in a belgian hospital all get to follow a one yr course funded by the hospital to get up to the demanded level of nursing to be able to do the job .

I had my two children in a school in Negros Oriental and all they learnt was how to dance, and when I complained to the Principle all he said was that if I did not like the way that my children were being taught that I could always take them out and to another school.
I told him that after three years of schooling they did not even know any history of the Philippines, nor any geography of the Philippines, but knew plenty of dance steps though.
So I started to school them myself for a couple of hours every night, and they now know the capitol cities of all the main islands, the last three Presidents of the Philippines, the population, and a little bit of the history of the Philippines and of other countries.
When I last went to their school to watch one of their concerts I mentioned to the Principle of what I have been doing and he asked me what sort of the things have I been teaching them, and I mentioned that they now know the capitol cities of many countries around the world, and I also have them reading books now instead of dancing in front of the mirror every night ,  which he did not seem too pleased about, and for some reason I asked him if he knew the capitol of Australia, with which and he replied Sydney. 
I just nodded my head in disgust and walked away.
They whole teaching system here needs to be upgraded, because I am afraid that singing and dance lessons everyday is not the way to educate children.  What has happened to Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic for starters?

I talked with many people here, for example, most of them do not know where Europe is located. One well educated girl told me that she know only about London and San Francisco! What a hell? I asked myself, what is at her head when she imagine map of the world? That's how I can recommend studying here. Probably they learning only about religion or dancing (as guy above said) or other pointless stuffs. I'm sorry to say that, Filipinos are very good people, friendly and kind, but unfortunately most of them are very dumb, even those well educated.

All I have to say is that I do not recommend anyone being educated for higher learning here in the Philippines. There are some great institutions, but they are mostly located in Manila and there may be difficulties being taught relevant and competent material, as well as having the resources available to function on a global level.

If the question is focused on University learning, the key is to find a University where K-12 core requirements have been made part of the entry requirements.  It is hard to find a University where matriculation can be accomplished to a US or european University.  Example:  In nearly all cases a current BS degree from the PH will not equal a BS in USA/Europe.  Most BS degree holders in the PI  came thru the 1-10 system to graduate HS.  With this fact, the BS degree in the PI is equal to an AA/AS in the USA. 

Therefore a Philippine resident student wishing to attain a graduate degree (MS/MA/MBA or PhD) abroad will need an additional year + of study at the US undergraduate (BS degree level) in order to have a clean matriculation to US graduate school. Very few proper grad schools will allow an AA/AS (2-year) degree holder to start a graduate course in the USA without the required academic achievement.

If the parent/student has acceptance in the USA as the goal, they may want to also review U.S. Department of Education's Office of Post-secondary Education (OPE) regarding specific foreign institutes/US accreditation. https://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/

As an American parent, I would learn as much as possible about accreditation bodies and have many talks with the folks at Department of State (US Embassy Manila):

Public Affairs Section
U.S. Embassy Manila
1201 Roxas Blvd.
Manila, Philippines
Phone: (632) 301-4192
Email: [email protected]
https://educationusa.state.gov

Also note that the student here in the PI with a local HS diploma will be required to prove successful completion of the international equivalent of US/Canadian secondary education (Year 12).  For those with a BS degree wishing to do graduate studies will need to be ready for GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) or GRE (Graduate Record Examination) testing. Some may need to take the ACT (American College Testing) or SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) exams and have the international equivalent of a North American four-year Bachelor's degree program from an accredited university.

If the selected local university can't provide a clear path within their system that shows compliance to the above, try not to waste time/money unless a local only (PI) accepted degree is fine.  My current selection would be limited to AUP: http://www.aup.edu.ph/5/ (undergraduate) or AIIAS: http://www.aiias.edu/en/ (graduate studies) where a PhD is about $15,000-$19,000.

To avoid the many "Diploma Mills" I would not recommend any move toward a degree in the PI unless/until a close review of what is accepted in the USA/Europe is accomplished.  Check here for Diploma Mill explanations:  https://www.wes.org/ewenr/diplomamills.htm

eduardo001 wrote:

I talked with many people here, for example, most of them do not know where Europe is located. One well educated girl told me that she know only about London and San Francisco! What a hell? I asked myself, what is at her head when she imagine map of the world? That's how I can recommend studying here. Probably they learning only about religion or dancing (as guy above said) or other pointless stuffs. I'm sorry to say that, Filipinos are very good people, friendly and kind, but unfortunately most of them are very dumb, even those well educated.

filipinos are not dumb at all ,to my view it is the education that needs to inprove drastikly to the 21frst century level.
greets Dirk

dirk c wrote:

eduardo001 wrote:

I talked with many people here, for example, most of them do not know where Europe is located. One well educated girl told me that she know only about London and San Francisco! What a hell? I asked myself, what is at her head when she imagine map of the world? That's how I can recommend studying here. Probably they learning only about religion or dancing (as guy above said) or other pointless stuffs. I'm sorry to say that, Filipinos are very good people, friendly and kind, but unfortunately most of them are very dumb, even those well educated.

filipinos are not dumb at all ,to my view it is the education that needs to inprove drastikly to the 21frst century level.
greets Dirk

Ok, "dumb" is rude word. I think maybe there is no interest to change education system. As the cardinal said to the king, “if you keep them poor, I will keep them ignorant”.

Well, I laughed reading one of you talking about Filipinos not knowing about the capital of the world ! It is true, many believe that Paris is a country and they ask me if London is the capital    Well, few years back I was a teaching in an American university East coast , undergrad and I did a test on world geography with really simple questions... on 30 students, only 3 were able to tell where Europe was ! so.. I am not surprised if Trump does not know his geography 

I would highly encourage foreigners to study in Philippines universities in specific subjects like learning English. Many Europeans are also studying in the Philippines in dentistry. Very good also in tropical agronomy etc. So it will really depend of the topics and your nationality.Of course a foreign student can do a one year course, not the whole curriculum..

The Philippines is and not the best place to study depending on the course and school you are sending you kids to attend for those making the plans to study here, why i said is?
1. is because the school system gives priority to some particular disciplines which in regards to medical courses, even so, with little to less update depending on the school you will be attending. The other aspect of preference is anything that has to do with mass communication, yes mass communication and beauty pageant. (they gossip too much even to your face and anything that has to with them looking very good. outward appearance) Irrespective of the preference, other disciplines are well recognized here in the country. Philippines has one of the best medical schools in Asia and with the ability of getting a first-hand practical knowledge of most of the things you get to find in your nursing, medicine etc books, unlike my country Nigeria, you dare not touch a sick client as a student nurse or a medical student else you have that same sick client get off from his sick bed and beat the crap out of you and go back to his sick bed to continue being sick. unless it is a hospital where the patient don't have a choice but to beg your assistant which is mostly common in the rural areas. with that been said, The Philippines is good when it comes to practical nursing and medicine, but i will encourage you not to hope of getting a job here after graduating because there is none to round the indigenes let alone foreigners.

2. Here comes the reason why i said NOT the best place, one of which is the student visa that you have to renew every 6 month but it is now once a year. Some countries will issue a student visa for the number of years the student will be studying in the country. instead, The Philippines decide to upgrade the country's GDP with our little money. that is by the way.
3. Lots of the courses here might not be to some countries standards, so i will encourage that you check with your country's department of education and accreditation board before making that big step away from home else have yourself regretting why you made the move.
4. i met someone who was in third-year computer science asking me to help him design a powerpoint presentation or Prezi for him.... yeah remember i said it depends on the school??? and the student to a greater extent.

5. you know what??? i have too many information in my head the Philippines that will require building a website for, and for some eastern European countries too. so i guess i will have to leave it to next time and not scare the crap out of anyone who hate too much information

I think less information is enough to take the risk and make some memory for yourself.

Hello Dirk C

I understand that you are trying to prevent eduardo001 from being rude to the Filipinos and of which i will not encourage. You might have met lot of intelligent people who engage you with an interesting conversation, it is fortunate that your school days are gone unlike eduardo001 and I, trust me when i tell you that you will coin a word more mean than dumb to describe some individuals i supposed would have been your class mate or end up lecturing your teachers in your class because they sometimes don't know the CAPITAL CITY OF THE PHILIPPINES which is supposed to be their country. most of the people i have met lack geography and social studies even up to the professors.

Probably there are no dumb people in Croatia and Nigeria 

Mean people are everywhere on the planet, even in this forum 

"The Philippines has one of the best medical schools in Asia"   
What drugs are you on?

Josh Owoh wrote:

Hello Dirk C

I understand that you are trying to prevent eduardo001 from being rude to the Filipinos and of which i will not encourage. You might have met lot of intelligent people who engage you with an interesting conversation, it is fortunate that your school days are gone unlike eduardo001 and I, trust me when i tell you that you will coin a word more mean than dumb to describe some individuals i supposed would have been your class mate or end up lecturing your teachers in your class because they sometimes don't know the CAPITAL CITY OF THE PHILIPPINES which is supposed to be their country. most of the people i have met lack geography and social studies even up to the professors.

not knowing is not a lack of inteligence but a lack of good education ,that is the point i try to make ,so the poor quality of the education sistem is the reason i wood not advise to study here .
i was lucky to have education were i cood go in to discusion whit my teachers and by beeing prooven wrong (or not ) i was educated.i can give examples of some of those discusions but than i wood be writting a very long post hehe so i will spare all of you and not go there.just let me say that one discusion in mathematics took several days and it was about the nbr 0,it ended whit agreeing on that 0 was an undestanding not a nuber in matematics hahaha.in the education here  this is inposibol no teacher wood be bothered to have this conversation .

greets Dirk

DWL

DavidWF wrote:

I had my two children in a school in Negros Oriental and all they learnt was how to dance, and when I complained to the Principle all he said was that if I did not like the way that my children were being taught that I could always take them out and to another school.
I told him that after three years of schooling they did not even know any history of the Philippines, nor any geography of the Philippines, but knew plenty of dance steps though.

I have my kids, in grades 3 and 1, enrolled at a Montessori in Quezon City. My son's reading assignment for this grading quarter is the first 12 chapters of The Wizard of Oz. In addition to vocabulary and comprehension questions, there are also questions which encourage the reader to reflect and think.

They also have a project where they need to pick 2 chapters and create a comic strip / story board of that chapter. He picked "The Journey to the Great Oz" and was excited to draw the Kalidahs. He said he would like to draw  also "The Queen of the Field Mice", but I asked him to pick another chapter (I didn't like an image of the Tin Woodsman chopping off the Wildcat's head.) So he opted for "The Emerald City of Oz", where the four main characters go to Emerald City and each meet the wizard in different forms.

My son also made an illustrated "book" out of stapled copy paper, "A Cat's Guide to Catching Birds", where he's the ghost writer to my pet cat, who's the author. (That is not part of school work.)

Last year's 2nd grade geography lessons were too much. He had to memorize all the regions, what provinces comprise that region, identify those regions in a map, among other things. So, we bought a large map of the Philippines and taped it to the wall so we can review it everyday.

"Principle" is a fundamental truth. A "principal" is the head of a school.

Not everybody can afford to pay a Montessori school!

DavidWF wrote:

I had my two children in a school in Negros Oriental and all they learnt was how to dance, and when I complained to the Principle all he said was that if I did not like the way that my children were being taught that I could always take them out and to another school.

So, did you already transfer them? If not yet, are you planning to take them to another school next school year?

DavidWF wrote:

I told him that after three years of schooling they did not even know any history of the Philippines, nor any geography of the Philippines, but knew plenty of dance steps though.

What age are your kids? What grade level are they in?

DavidWF wrote:

So I started to school them myself for a couple of hours every night, and they now know the capitol cities of all the main islands, the last three Presidents of the Philippines, the population, and a little bit of the history of the Philippines and of other countries.

Good for you. And for your kids. As parents, we do sometimes need to take matters into our own hands for our children's well being.

DavidWF wrote:

When I last went to their school to watch one of their concerts I mentioned to the Principle of what I have been doing and he asked me what sort of the things have I been teaching them, and I mentioned that they now know the capitol cities of many countries around the world, and I also have them reading books now instead of dancing in front of the mirror every night ,  which he did not seem too pleased about, and for some reason I asked him if he knew the capitol of Australia, with which and he replied Sydney.  I just nodded my head in disgust and walked away.

That was actually pretty rude. Of course you would know the answer to "what is the capital of Australia" because you are from Australia. Both my husband and I would have answered Melbourne. But we're not dumb. Can you identify all the 50 states of America on a map and name their state capitals? We can in a heartbeat.

Me, I wouldn't mind if a teacher doesn't remember the capital of Australia, as long as he/ she's not the geography or world history teacher.

DavidWF wrote:

They whole teaching system here needs to be upgraded, because I am afraid that singing and dance lessons everyday is not the way to educate children.  What has happened to Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic for starters?

I think what we should teach our children is the desire to learn, the love of learning. When I was ten, I read "The Old Lady's Bedroom" in Collier's Junior Classics. My mom prompted me to read it. It was interesting, so I asked a relative if he can get me a copy of The Princess and the Goblin to see what happens to Irene.  Since then I wanted to read books not included in the school's reading list and also from other genres and not just children's fantasy.

and here we go again ,atacking eachother and bosting about our own doings.i tooght the topic was how westand about advising studying in the philippines .
i wood not advise it as to my opinion the education level in general is low .
that's itt.
there are some exeptions on that but these are very expensive and for the few who can aford it
my personal opinion ,i can be wrong (but i dontthink so )
greets Dirk

No I am not rude FilAmerican mom.    I would expect any educated person would know the capitol city of Australia, and for your benefit I do know the capitol cities of each of the fifty states in America, we were taught them when I was at High School, and we were also taught the capitol city of EVERY country in the world.     How stupid would I be if I went to the USA thinking that maybe New York was the capitol. That would be as dumb as saying that Melbourne ( which you probably dont even know what state it is in )  is the capitol of Australia.
And I bet that you dont even know that your country has a total area of 3,805,927 square miles, which I can still remember from my school days.
Of course you know the capitol cities of each of the states of the USA... you live there.  You would be very dumb if you didn`t know them, dont you think?   lol.

I have a lot to say but am afraid that it may upset a lot of people, cos I can be brutally truthful and that will not be appreciated ,I have a first hand understanding of  the Filipino education system and standard. When based out of Dubai I employed over several hundred Filipinos and had interviewed over several hundred candidates and assessed their abilities and education.I also used to visit Philippines at least two times a year for the last  20 years recruiting people  and appraising their CV,s and education, now I am leaving here in the Philippines for three last 3 years  have searched high and low for good educated candidates for new start ups and its been tough. All I can say is that I read the comments by a lot of people in the forum and cannot disagree with most of them.I also feel the new K12 is very good move , should give the students a very good foundation and  and a fighting chance of being recognised with good education in the international job market.
I think enough said

Well, studying in the Philippines is nice decision for me and from my research, i think the standard is fine, the fees are on the average, cost of living is not very high and the language of instruction is English. Above all the people are nice and easy going.

Regards,

Daniel

This topic includes many views with emotional based "subjective" info or advice.  I have enjoyed learning and applying important life lessons based more on "objective" processes.  This process is highly recommended in the educational areas of interests.  When a person is looking for the best fit, they must review COURSE LEVELS AND AREAS OF STUDIES coupled with a review of the many standards bodies here such as: PAARL, PAASCU, AACCUP and PACUCOA. 

I highly recommend that parents take a look at the universities that have earned a status of I - IV in the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU)/Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission On Accreditation (PACUCOA). 

General ranking info can be found here: 
http://www.4icu.org/ph/

If I were searching for a university with comparable ratings to top foreign universities, I would never consider a Philippine University that has not earned at least a level II accreditation from PAASCU/PACUCOA.  In my case, the top 50 Phil universities with a level II or higher rating, offering Doctoral Degrees in Business and Science was reviewed/considered.  Clearly, this process yields more objective selection variables than any subjective set of views on Philippine Universities and their rankings.  Additionally, an informed person will look for accreditation from the target country of post graduate interest.

geolefrench,

I am sure that Trump knows his geography better than you.  After all, he has businesses all over the globe and is a world traveler.  Making such comments just shows your immaturity.