Solid North Party-list Rep. Ching Bernos echoed the call of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) to invest in the Commission on Higher Education’s capabilities.
“It is a well-established fact that the Commission on Higher Education is stretched to its limits. Kulang na kulang sa staff kaya kinakapos sila gaano man nila kagustong gampanan ang kanilang mandato,” Bernos, a member of the House committee on higher and technical education said.
EDCOM 2 cited what it called extreme deficiencies in CHED’s regional monitoring capacity in its Final Report, Turning Point: A Decade of Necessary Reform (2026–2035).
Bernos said it is crucial that the CHED be “radically improved if we are to address the various gaps that yield an inferior quality of tertiary education.
The commission noted that CHED only had 398 plantilla personnel tasked with monitoring 37,443 undergraduate and graduate programs in 1,980 colleges and universities serving 3.8 million students. It also pointed out that in some regions, a single staff member is responsible for overseeing more than 200 programs.
EDCOM 2 further noted that due to understaffing, CHED had managed to review only 13 percent of programs scheduled for monitoring, with 84 percent of those reviewed found to have deficiencies ranging from inadequate facilities to weak faculty qualifications.
The CHED also reported that it takes an average of 11 years to update standards for college degree programs.
Bernos said it is crucial that the CHED be “radically improved if we are to address the various gaps that yield an inferior quality of tertiary education.”
“Kung gusto natin na mas gumaling ang ating mga pamantasan at kolehiyo, kinakailangang mabigyan ng sapat na tao at pondo ang CHED para gawin ang mandato nitong pangasiwaan ang kalidad ng edukasyon na inaalok ng ating mga institusyon,” the lawmaker added.
Bernos added that even as the proposal to update CHED’s charter through the Higher Education Development and Innovation Act is pending, there should be parallel efforts to equip the commission properly.
“The future of our children is at stake here. Our continued failure to make CHED capable of upholding its mandate to ensure quality education in our institutions could mean that even though students graduate what they will be holding is a mere piece of paper, minus the knowledge required to be productive citizens.”
