Call it educational tourism or edu-tourism, but the fact remains that state universities and colleges’ overall mission on it is doomed to fail because of the “travel goals” of politicians. Private higher education institutions, for that matter, need to use their potential and stop following the practices of their counterparts in the countryside.
There is no doubt that we generally lack dynamic management and leadership skills simply because our local and national politicians use a huge sum of taxpayer pesos for their travel goals in America, Europe, and Asia. Just take a close look at university projects for edu-tourism, their health and environmental impacts if any, and you would instantly spot them on your own: Sayang.
Even short-term goals cannot be achieved, though educators have done and are doing their best enriching students with cultural and related experience by their educational travels. While the educators intensely provide high-quality curricular offerings in hospitality and tourism, Congress tolerates non-stop errors of judgment by some of its “honorable” members from its two chambers, whose horrible official travel expenses redound to benefits that are simply not great. It is the same Congress which does not have the balls or scruples to instigate high-level talks to make sure taxpayer money is spent wisely and judiciously in foreign trips of officials. “Juicylicious” funds and future support for political undertakings are going to happen should they keep mum on excessive foreign travel issues. Pundits note that Congress cannot see real threats to the public out of these secret deals made before and after the top officials travel abroad. Have we heard of a single congressional inquiry dissecting the budget rundowns of the official tours made in the last six months? Majority of congressmen and senators are a hit and miss in terms of exercising their check-and-balance power to override and reject extravagant ideas of going out of the country as their constituents keep on asking for basic social and health services to no avail.
We always hear university projects getting small budgets, while all we hear from our legislators and key government officials is that they triumph on their trips overseas. They trumpet billions and trillions of fresh investment “pledges,” but economic experts think otherwise. According to them, every nation-state pledge these days means nothing but an empty promise. You may even contemplate why these politicians allow these to happen; it is all because out of all these trips, they can successfully advance their art of PR.
But who are really going to invest in the Philippines and how ready are they to know that we are not ready for them? Neither for ourselves. On the bright side, educators and their institutions are focused on their educative mission, busying themselves more on the local edu-tourism, with many of them even extending their service to the service and agriculture sectors. Simply put, politicians’ “travel goals” must go away.
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
