Last December 1, the UP College of Education (UPCEd) held a research agenda workshop. The main objective of the workshop is for the UPCEd to forge a research agenda that will determine its research priorities and initiatives for 2016-2018. This initiative is driven by the challenges and educational changes the national education system is facing.

To inform the development of the UPCEd Research Agenda 2016-2018, current challenges and changes in education are culled from global, regional, and local educational policies. Examples of such policies include the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)’s policy framework for the internationalization of higher education and a credit transfer system to establish the comparability of Philippine higher education with the rest of the world. In the case of the national basic education system, the implementation of the K to 12 program brings about the institutionalization of Kindergarten, mother tongue-based multilingual education, and senior high school.

In addition, the workshop aims to revisit the previous research agenda of UPCED for 2012-2015, alongside with the research agenda of education institutions in the ASEAN region such as the National Institute of Education (NIE) of Singapore, the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) of South Korea, the Hong Kong Institute of Education, and the Philippine Normal University (PNU). This is to assist UPCEd in gauging its research capacities with respect to its regional counterparts.

Prof. Sheryl Lyn Monterola facilitated the workshop. Members of the UPCEd faculty were asked to present their area’s research goals, research strands, and research priorities. The workshop concluded with a synthesis of all the outputs presented by the areas.