According to the Commission on Higher Education there are currently 2,299 institutions of higher education registered in the Philippines, of which 1,643 (71 percent) are in the private sector. Of the 656 institutions in the public sector, 547 are state universities or colleges, 95 are local universities and colleges. (World Education News). According to the Commission, there were 553,706 college graduates in 2014 and 656,284 in 2015.
In some degree programs, our education system requires a research project or better known as a thesis to be supervised by a professor and later presented to an academic panel for acceptance with/without revisions. Well, research must always be of high quality in order to produce knowledge necessary for improvement in any field of endeavor. With over 1M graduates in 2014 and 2015, how many researches have been actually used to increase and improve knowledge. How many were unused duplicated researches and how many were used for further studies?
I have done an undergraduate thesis, two masters’ thesis and a dissertation. I wonder how many actually read and used the “recommendations for future studies”? Degree programs involve a lot of coursework and researches. Writing a scientific research paper is a major challenge and requires a great deal of time, money, preparation, patience and scientific writing. Today’s research is increasingly complex and no single individual possess all the knowledge, skills and techniques required, hence the need for “limitations of the study” in our Chapter one. When I did my thesis proposal, I was free to choose whatever topic I wanted. I was never guided if a similar study was done or if my study was an original. There was never a reference nor a guide. While having coffee with friends from the academe, an interesting concept on the problem of duplication of researches, the possibility of collaboration between SUC/HEI and promoting a ladderized approach as a means to save resources and promote healthy competition among students were discussed. If we can provide a compilation of top researches from different SUC/HEI, wouldn’t it be more productive than to “add on” rather than repeat an existing study?
Well, here are few research definitions; duplication of research is defined as a repetition of research efforts; Complementarity are strategies to confirm, overturn, or extend particular research findings; Replication of research aims to confirm studies hypotheses being reevaluated. In this context, replication is not only legitimate but essential in providing “proof positive” of research findings However, once a hypothesis is accepted, repeating experiments becomes duplicative. (J. Fox,) Duplication then becomes a waste of time, effort and resources.
As a university student, competition was the norm and I agreed with Herbert Spencer who coined the term “survival of the fittest”, claiming that competition is fundamental nature. In my opinion, competition in the academe is healthy, but we need to move on towards collaboration and work together as academic scholars to promote National Development. In this aspect, doing collaborative researches built on existing scholarly academic work should be our next step towards developing our National Research Agenda.
Our Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as the key leader of the Philippine Higher Education System, should initiate collaboration among State Universities/Colleges, Higher Educational Institutions and individual researchers towards developing a “compilation of researches” to avoid duplication of studies and promote ladderization of studies. CHED should also develop policies aimed at improving links across sectors–in particular, between “university and industry” and “university to university” as a partner in developing our National Research Agenda.
In a study made by (Lotka 1926), The effects of collaboration on “productivity and impact” indicate that high productivity is indeed correlated with high levels of collaboration. The dictionary definition of collaboration is “working together of individuals to achieve a common goal”. Thus, a ‘research collaboration’ could be defined as the working together of researchers to achieve the common goal of producing new scientific knowledge. It would be ideal if our business chambers sponsor yearly research forums to give directions in relation to our national research agenda, promote and support strategic industries identified by our President. In the end, it will also be the business sector that what will benefit from new knowledge.
Collaboration not competition… The power of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to issue a memorandum order requiring all State Universities/colleges and Higher Educational Institutions to submit their top studies/abstract to avoid duplication of researches and prepare/publish a yearly compilation promoting ladderization of research, encouraging researchers to work together rather than against each other, is a possible direction of our National Research Agenda. “. Innovation happens when different people with different perspectives work together.” (Jonathan wong) The direct economic contribution of the collaboration of higher education institution research and the long-term benefits as a people, business and socio-political relations will be beyond measure.
The author took “Essentials of Policy Development” at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; “Strategic Management of Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies” at the Harvard Kennedy School; “Leadership and Management for Integrity” & “Innovations in Governance” at the Central European University.
Originally published by The Manila Times on November 16, 2017.
View the original publication at The Manila Times ↗