Editor's note: We received the following email from former University of the Philippines in the Visayas Chancellor Flor Lacanilao. We are posting this in view of its timeliness and newsworthiness regarding the topic of U.P.'s heroic attempts to buttres its international standings in research:
"Sharing my posted comment on the article in today's Inquirer (copied below) about university rankings:
The only way to start improving education in the country is to appoint people properly trained for the job. And the easiest way to find out if one has made any major contributions to one's field is with the ISI data base called Web of Knowledge. You can get nearly the same information (published papers and citations) from Google Scholar, by counting only those published in peer-reviewed international journals -- those covered in Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index.
You will be surpised to learn that nearly all of those running our education institutions, including our major universities like the four mentioned in this article, lack such publications. That is, they are not properly trained or have not made any major contributions to their fields."
Read the rest here.
Re the fourth paragraph. When the Chancellor refers to those running educational institutions, what level of management is being referred to? Are the current UP president or the past ADMU president not up to standard as far as being university presidents just because they may not be "published"?
ReplyDeleteOr is a "published" physical scientist more qualified if the educational institution caters to a wide range of disciplines giving no preference to any of single discipline?
I believe not.Running an educational institution requires more capacity than just having your works published. Mas malaking component ang interaction with and sensitivity to all stakeholders and the ability to attain a balance between the short and long term horizons in all aspects.