Issues and Challenges in Higher Education

COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
Maldives, Brunei Darussalam, and the Philippines

Mr. Rheyjhen M. Cadawas

Reporter
Quick Facts:
MALDIVES BRUNEI PHILIPPINES

OFFICIAL Republic of Negara Brunei Republic of the

COUNTRY Maldives, also Darussalam Philippines, also called
NAME called Maldives Philippine Islands
Islands

LOCATION South Asia South East Asia South East Asia

LANGUAGE Dhivehi Malay Filipino

Quick Facts:
MALDIVES BRUNEI PHILIPPINES
YOUTH In 2015, youth In 2015, youth Philippines youth
LITERACY RATE literacy rate for literacy rate for literacy rate was at
Maldives was Brunei Darussalam level of 98.22 % in
(https://knoema. 99.76 %. Though was 99.6 %. Youth 2015, up from 98.11 %
com/) Maldives youth literacy rate of in 2013
literacy rate Brunei Darussalam
fluctuated increased from
substantially in 93.68 % in 1981 to
recent years, it 99.6 % in 2015
tended to increase growing at an
through 1985 - average annual rate
2015 period ending of 1.56%.
at 99.76 % in 2015.
Quick Facts:
MALDIVES BRUNEI PHILIPPINES
EDUCATION
STRUCTURE

ACADEMIC YEAR The Education Ministry The school year In the Philippines, most school
has announced that consists of 4 terms of years begin in June and end in
they have decided to around 10 to 12 weeks March. Summer holidays take
change the beginning of each. The academic place from April to June.
the new academic As of 2015, some local schools
year begins on 02 and universities have changed to
year permanently to
August in Maldives January with a 4-week the
break at the end of the international school calendar,
year. Subject to minor where the school year begins in
changes. August.
 Legal Bases
MALDIVES BRUNEI PHILIPPINES
Based on the An Education Order: In the 1987 Philippine
Constitution of Constitution of Brunei Constitution, ARTICLE XIV
Maldives Article 19 Darussalam Order under EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND
section 83 (3) and TECHNOLOGY, ARTS,
stated “Persons shall
CHAPTER 210 CULTURE AND SPORTS
be free to acquire EDUCATION: An order
knowledge provided EDUCATION.
relating to education to
that such acquisition make provision for the Section 1. The State shall
and imparting of registration and regulation protect and promote the right
knowledge does not of all schools and of all citizens to quality
contravene the law.” educational institutions and education at all levels, and
for matters connected shall take appropriate steps to
therewith. make such education
accessible to all.
 Access to Education
MALDIVES
Students at the state-
run Maldives National
University and Islamic
University of Maldives will
no longer have to pay
their tuition fees, while a
very high percentage will be
paid by the state for
students pursuing degrees
in private colleges, Solih
said at the launch of
the free education system
held in Male ( Xinhua,
2019).
BRUNEI PHILIPPINES
A lot of steps have been taken In 2017,
by the Brunei government in the Philippine government
the education sector and all enacted the
the citizens get to enjoy the Universal Access to
benefit of accessing free
schooling at all levels of Quality Tertiary
education. There are only four Education Act which
universities in the country. The provides free tuition for
duration of the courses range students of 112
from 2 years for the diploma state universities and
programs to 4 years for the colleges (SUCs) across the
bachelor’s programs.
country to make it available
to everyone. (Suarez,
2018)
Issues and Challenges in Higher Education
COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
MALDIVES

Mr. Rheyjhen M. Cadawas

Reporter
 Issues and Challenges in Maldives
MALDIVES
•The quality of education is a
concern throughout the Maldives,
and many adolescents lack
access to higher secondary
education.
Response
UNICEF worked with the Ministry of
Education to launch the Maldives
Education Management Information
System (MEMIS). MEMIS a real-time,
student-based information system for
tracking educational achievement.
This system, which was launched in
2017, is helping ensure every student
obtains a high quality of education.
The innovation is the first of its kind in
South Asia.
Issues and Challenges in
Maldives

MALDIVES Response
Widespread social norms have More must be done at the local
continued to create high barriers for level to prevent harmful social norms
disabled children, as many parents from keeping disabled children out of
assume those with a disability do not school.
belong in the classroom.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES
•The second generation challenge is to
provide education of adequate quality.
Evidence from a variety of sources
shows that education quality in the
Maldives is weak, and needs urgent
improvement. Learning outcomes in
both primary and secondary education
are modest. National assessments of
learning outcomes at Grade 4 and
Grade 7 show that learning levels are
unsatisfactory. The low average
scores suggest that learning levels in
both primary education and lower
secondary education are weak.
Response
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is
concerned to develop the skills,
motivation and performance of teachers.
•The quality of school teachers is central
to the improvement of education quality
•A second key policy initiative is the
establishment of a sound quality
assurance framework for the school
system.
•the development of a system of regular
national assessments of learning
outcomes, which can then feed into policy
formulation and program development.
Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Challenge

•The lack of sufficient • It is important to minimize the

teachers is another gap between the islands and
challenge Maldives face.  the capital Male, by building a
There are 6,407 teachers network which would enable
in the Maldives out of the teachers to share the
which 1,605 teachers are instructional materials.
untrained (MOE, 2010).
The statistics above show that the government Higher Education
providers the student teacher ratio varied between 1:15 and 1:36.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Challenges
•Some teaching practices continue •Some parents, especially in the atolls,
the promotion of memorization express difficulties to understand the
rather than comprehension and new curriculum, the new textbooks
higher order cognitive thinking and the assessment modalities.
skills.
•Classroom-based assessment
remains an issue as well as the use
of new practices with high-level
cognitive thinking and
questioning.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Challenges
•The role of a policy during •In terms of Technology, Maldives has
the developmental phase is achieved a great success in expanding
crucial.  telecommunication access to all the
inhabitant islands long back in 1999 (ITU,
2004).  
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Challenges

•In R&D, there is no public

research grant /facility available in
the country. (Maldives Education
Sector Analysis)
 Limited number of researchers and
scientists.
 Lack of an optimum research
environment and paucity of
research capacity.
 Lack of finances for research.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES
•There is a general bias among
Maldivian workers, especially among
school leavers, against manual labor,
which is often associated in their
minds with low status and low wages
(Human Rights Commission 2009).
Response
•The educational attainment of the
Maldivian working population remains
low and regional disparity is high due
to limited access to secondary and
tertiary education.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Response

•Some of the challenges include The Master Plan for Higher

a shortage of human resources, Education (2017 – 2020) has policy
physical facility, IT infrastructure recommendations to develop the
and finances. governance of Higher Education.
•The lack of proper regulation to
govern the Higher Education sector of
the Maldives is a challenge faced by
the Higher Education sector.
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES Response

•The fact that the Maldives has The Master Plan for Higher
small-knit communities makes it a Education (2017 – 2020) has policy
challenge to conduct an independent recommendations to develop the
institutional audit. Furthermore, governance of Higher Education.
sourcing the required expertise and
obtaining finances involved for
transport from one-island to another
adds to the challenge. There are
institutes which have several
campuses and outreach centres
across the Maldives.
Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES

•The Maldives National University

Maldivians prefer to (formerly Maldives College of Higher
undertake their higher Education) became the first public
institution to offer a bachelor’s degree
studies abroad rather program in 2000; a limited number of
than in their own degree programs became available
over the years that followed. Maldivians
country. seeking most types of degrees must
go abroad.
•No Higher Education program is
offered in the fields of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Veterinary science in the
country
 Issues and Challenges in
Maldives
MALDIVES
•To ensure all children across the
country continue learning, Maldives has
prepared an education response plan for
COVID-19 with support from the Global
Partnership for Education 
•Before the coronavirus hit, Maldives
had already stepped up online education.
Every student at government schools in
the country received a tablet from the
Ministry of Education in 2018—more than
80 percent of students have tablets at
home.
•Internet service providers have also
agreed to provide 5GB of free data to
every student.
Response
The government online education
platform, Filaa, is a resource repository
that includes digital textbooks. Google
Classroom and other G-suite education
apps allow students, teachers, school
administrators, and government staff to
create personal accounts and share
notes, assignments, and worksheets.
Beyond COVID-19, education and
training will still face unique challenges
as Maldives’s scattered geography and
far-flung atolls require specific
responses.  
Issues and Challenges in Higher Education
COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
BRUNEI DARUSALLAM

Mr. Rheyjhen M. Cadawas

Reporter
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI
•The gender gap in
academic achievement in
Brunei Darussalam
becomes apparent at the
tertiary level of education.
CHALLENGES
•In addition to the lack of
academic qualifications to enter
college and university, other
contributing factors include
financial problems, interest
to gain work, experience, lack
of interest for further study,
and lack of confidence to
further their study due to
poor academic results
(Metussin 2017).
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES

. Brain Drain •“Dualist system of education”

is the main problem faced by
Muslim society.
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES
The curriculum reforms might The emerging challenges in
need to be supplemented or policy implementation of
complemented with the reform “Sistem Pendidikan Negara
of school assessments Abad ke-21” (SPN21) .
particularly the public or
national examinations to
force instructors in schools
to teach the new contents and
skills.
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES
Brunei Darussalam has been Coping and help-seeking were
attempting to diversify the positively and significantly related to
economy by investing on academic achievement on the two
knowledge. Various Brunei main teacher education
researches have pointed out programs.
how the oil and gas sector
contribute significantly to the
economic development
process.
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES
Brunei's educational system The second is the continuing
will face two major future dilemma of integrating
challenges. historical and traditional
•The first is to expand (religion, monarchy, and
available educational "colonialism") as well as
resources and choices at all modern (liberalization and
levels. globalization) elements into a
coherent educational
infrastructure. (N. Prabha
Unnithan)
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI
The Bruneian Universities conduct
research as well. For instance,
the UBD is the first university in
Brunei and implements research
activities in areas such as renewable
energy, creative industry, modeling,
biodiversity, ecology and healthcare.
CHALLENGES
The government actively funds the university.
Another considerable body is the Brunei
institute of technology, which mainly conducts
research in green technology, water,
petroleum and gas. (Sea-eu-net)
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES
A total of 1 547 •To provide local students with
publications with at least international exposure, UBD
one author from Brunei in introduced the GenNEXT
the sci-expanded was curriculum in 2011.
found within 11 document
types indexed in the web
of science.

In Brunei, All 1 257

Articles were Published
In English (Yuh-shan
Ho).
 Study on Enhancing Intra-ASEAN University Student Mobility
Issues and Challenges in Brunei
BRUNEI CHALLENGES
When Brunei reported zero Hence, they have come up
cases infections – with different action plans
Higher education institutions in and measures, ranging from
Brunei are given options to fully face-to-face instruction to
follow what is considered best varied forms of blended
for them, their specific learning.
conditions and their teachers
and students when it comes to Therefore, what happens in
teaching, learning and each institution can vary
pedagogical practices. greatly, depending on the mode
of instruction and delivery being
implemented.
SYNTHESIS
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 Read more: Brunei - Education, Schools, Educational, and Secondary - StateUniversity.com 
THANK YOU!
SIR CADAWAS