UP, Ateneo Lead 7 Philippine Universities In Serving Science – Without A Human Face!

Our friendly neighbor UP Los Baños humanities professor (newly Retired) Jerry R Yapo has just come up with a Facebook sharing on the news “UP, Ateneo Lead 7 Philippine Universities In QS World, Asian Rankings.” London-based Quacquarelli Symonds, QS, has come out with its annual world and Asia university rankings. I’m a UPLB alumnus myself, so I share Mr Yapo’s pride. What’s Prestige for?!

Yet: Universities are doing Research and the Intellectual Outputs are Science or Knowledge in various forms, but do they serve the people? Unfortunately No. They serve the Researchers!

In contrast: As Asean first, running now is SEARCA Online Learning & Virtual Engagement, SOLVE, a webinar series to help farmers and gardeners in Southeast Asia. Aged 100+ vs 54: The old fogies will now learn from the new kid on the block. SOLVEd!

Years ago, I blogged, “Sleeping Journals Lie. Science As The Waterloo Of Universities[1]" (25 January 2013, Frank A Hilario). My point was PH technical journals were sleeping on the job! They still are.

The basis for the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings are: Teaching, Research, Citations, International Outlook, and Industry Income. For the QS ranking, these are measured: Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Faculty Student Ratio, Citations per Faculty, International Faculty, and International Students.

UP had subjects ranked as follows:

Development Studies – #51-100 top universities
Performing Arts – #51-100 top universities
Law and Legal Studies – #251-300 top universities
Medicine – #301-350 top universities

Now, are farming families in there somewhere? Nowhere to be seen! (Look again at the above family image I painterized and then superimposed.) Those universities do not teach farmers, hardly does UP Los Baños, the national university for agriculture. The researches done are what the faculty members want, not what society needs; and there are hardly any technical papers written and published out of those research results. This is an Editor In Chief speaking, someone who has been in and out of UP Los Baños in that capacity the last 45 years. Sleeping researches lie!

So, without realizing it, our friend Mr Yapo is citing good work for the faculty but non-work for the farmers and their families. (original poor family image from World Food Programme[2])

When Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie was still Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, he came up with the goal/slogan, “Science with a human face.” As the Team Captain, he brought his group from dead last to first, and the CGIAR group applauded. New and improved science was visibly serving the poor farmers in Africa and Asia, not to mention India where ICRISAT was based. The Philippines benefited from ICRISAT research too – say “sweet sorghum,” that thing that is sweeter than sugar.

What we need today from PH universities are science pushers, knowledge advancers, technology innovators and system inventors or re-inventors who push PH agriculture from the 20^th to the 21^st century with the farm families in the frontlines – high world or Asia rankings welcome but not necessary!@517

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[1] https://frankahilario.blogspot.com/2013/01/sleeping-journals-lie-science-as.html

[2] https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000015508/download/