The British Council is looking for a UK consultant to provide technical assistance to the Philippine Commission on Higher Education in producing a template for the contextual analysis of Philippine bachelor’s degree qualifications which CHED can use for the comparability processes with other countries, including the UK.
About the Project
The British Council in the Philippines has been working closely with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the government agency responsible for higher education in the Philippines, on several internationalisation projects since 2015. One of these collaborations is the Joint Development of Niche Programmes through Philippine-UK Linkages (JDNP), a pilot project on transnational education (TNE), that provided catalyst grant for Philippine universities to build capacity on TNE and develop joint and double postgraduate degrees with the UK. In 2020, the British Council’s partnership with CHED expanded through the approval of the Access and Competitiveness through Internationalisation of Higher Education (ACT-IHE). The new project seeks to widen access to quality education and build competitiveness of Filipino higher education institutions on international higher education by strengthening their capacity to internationalise. ACT-IHE contributes to the Philippines’ efforts in modernising higher education through internationalisation and TNE.
JDNP and ACT-IHE are part of CHED’s broader efforts to produce quality degree programmes that align with international standards. These are part of the Philippines’ wider goal of increasing recognition of education or experience, certifications, licenses and other professional qualifications of Filipinos in other countries and vice versa. It reflects Philippines’ aspiration for successful integration of Filipinos in national and international labour market. Within the country, there exists a national policy since 2012 (Executive Order No. 83, s. 2012) that institutionalises a quality-assured national system for the development, recognition and award of qualifications. The Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF) outlines the different levels of educational qualifications and sets the standards for qualification outcomes.
MRAs and MRPQs exist within ASEAN Member States on seven professional qualifications: engineering, nursing, architecture, land surveying, medical, dental and accountancy. Outside of Southeast Asia, trade agreements with other countries (e.g. Japan) include MRAs. In line with its interest to increase recognition of Philippine qualifications internationally, CHED is expanding these negotiations to other countries like New Zealand and the UK, to name a few. With the growing number of UK-Philippine TNE partnerships, CHED has expressed interest to explore an arrangement with the UK on further increasing the recognition of qualifications between the two countries. Through this, CHED hopes to facilitate seamless mobility of students and professionals between the UK and the Philippines.
Consultant requirements
We require a UK consultant with extensive experience in international higher education or comparative education, particularly in the UK and Southeast Asia, and must have expertise in National Qualifications Frameworks and in Quality Assurance systems and procedures. The list of criteria can be found on the Request for Proposal.
About Going Global Partnerships
This activity forms part of Philippine's ACT-IHE project the Going Global Partnerships programme. Going Global Partnerships connects universities, colleges, education policy makers and other partners in the UK and around the world. The programme offers you vital international opportunities - the chance to build relationships, to share ideas and good practice, to access grant funding for collaborative partnerships and more.
The Request for Proposal and the Response Templates are uploaded on this page. Deadline of submission of required documents (Annex 2 and 3) is on 10 July 2022.
For clarification questions, please send them to Pierre.Pecson@britishcouncil.org.ph.