The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) urged to strictly monitor diploma mills or entities that offer graduate programs not accredited by CHED.

The Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation, chairman Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said CHED should act on it.

“In short, colorum ‘tong school na ito,” Gatchalan remarked.

“We want teachers to continue to study, continue to upgrade themselves, get promoted later on, upgrade their salaries. But in the course of doing so, maraming mga ganitong mga colorum na vini-victimize yung mga teachers natin. And we have to be very proactive in this case or else, dadating ang punto, this will become uncontrollable,” Gatchalian further said.

Erickson Reyes, Senior Education Program Specialist of CHED, said the matter is under investigation.

“We have conducted a meeting po with MIMAROPA CHED,” Reyes replied. “Based on information that we have po, it’s an illegal offering at Palawan po. So this school is actually a private school located in BARMM. So they offered an extension program in Palawan, which was not authorized by the Ministry of Basic and Higher Technical Education.”

Reyes said they check programs offered at the graduate level to assure that these are authorized by CHED.

Senator Erwin Tulfo cited an incident were about 100 teachers in Palawan took online courses in a certain institution, paid, and even graduated, only for the schooling to not be acknowledged in the end.

He told CHED, “From time to time, you have to make announcements na beware, be careful, kasi kawawa din po yung mga teachers po natin.”

Meanwhile, CHED, the Department of Education (DepEd), Teacher Education Council, Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II), and Professional Regulation Commission have also came up with a database called Philippine Teacher Education Registry (PhilTER), where credited programs and schools can be seen.

“Ang PhilTER po ay ang kauna-unahan na registry kung saan matitingnan ng lahat ng stakeholders natin, estudyante man o mga parents man o lahat ng member ng higher education o teacher education kung may quality assurance ang kanilang TEI at ang kanilang programa,” according to DepEd Executive Director Jennie Jocson.

Dr. Edizon Fermin, chairperson of the Technical Panel for Teacher Education (TPTE), made a call for help, pointing out that there is a staffing problem for regional offices of CHED.

“The manpower that they have to facilitate monitoring and evaluation of these degree programs, from application all the way to finding out compliance, there’s a region which only has six or five program specialists, and these program specialists have to actually attend to all degree programs in the region,” Fermin explained.