An International Partnership To Address Institutional Environmental Education Needs In The Philippines

The trend toward global environmental awareness necessitates the establishment of cooperative partnerships among institutions to ensure environmental preservation at a global scale. This paper describes the experiences in developing a partnership in environmental education and research between the University of South Carolina (USC) in the United States and the Mapúa Institute of Technology in the Philippines. A baseline study on the state of environmental engineering/science education and research in Mapúa was conducted. Survey instruments were designed to assess the needs of various institutions for environmental engineering education and research, particularly on sustainable development and pollution prevention. These survey instruments were sent to industry, academe, government, and non-governmental organizations in the Philippines. A workshop was held in Manila, Philippines last May 2000 for which participants were selected from the various sectors based on an analysis of the survey results. Documentation of the education and research requirements of the various sectors was finalized, and key partners were identified for the initiative. Representatives from Mapúa visited USC in July 2000 to view the state of environmental education and research at USC. Coupled with results from the Philippine survey and workshop, a curriculum was designed to provide a state of the art graduate environmental engineering program at Mapúa. Currently, the proposed program is awaiting approval by the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED).