Mismatch: Higher education and leadership

THE higher education leaders convened last week by Philippine Business for Education (PBED) recommend that a national development plan aimed at the mid-21st century be formulated to help guide educational policy. In fact a national development plan reflective of a national consensus on where we want to be in 2050 would be good for government in general. Where should “development,” “the economy,” “politics,” “business and commerce” and “education,” including basic and higher education, take us in 35 years? This is material for a national conversation that is long overdue.

The 2050 vision should determine the process by which we get there. Otherwise, in wanting to build a pleasant home with a garden of fruit trees and flowers, we end up with a desolate junkyard filled with toxic waste and putrid stench, or in wanting to build a city of humanity, productivity and harmony, we end up with an eternalization of the disaster that is the metropolitan capital region today. Of our many problems, which do we intend to have solved by mid-century? The vision should determine the master strategy. It should determine the type of economics, politics, commerce, and education we engage in. Economics need not be based on driving consumption, industry need not be based on environmental degradation, politics need not be based on unending character assassination, commerce need not be based on profit maximization, and higher education need not be castrated by constrained compliance to bureaucratic imposition. This must at least be considered, or vigorously debated.