Tambuling Batangas Publication January 30-February 05, 2019 | Page 5

OPINYON
January 30-February 5, 2019
RP-UK educational collaboration key strategy
in internationalization, competitiveness - CHED
LONDON
--
“Expanding
collaboration between universities
in the Philippines and United
Kingdom is a key strategy for
the internationalization of higher
education and competitiveness.”

This was the statement
given by Commission on Higher
Education (CHED) Chairman J.
Prospero E. de Vera III during
the select ministers meeting
organized by United Kingdom
(UK) Minister of State for
Universities, Science, Research
and Innovation Chris Skidmore
at the British Parliament today
at the sidelines of the Education
World Forum (EWF) 2019 in
London, England.

The EWF 2019 was
attended by close to 100 ministers
from different countries and
tackled various education issues.
The special meeting led by UK
Minister of State Skidmore
was attended by Chairman de
Vera and ministers of Vietnam,
Cuba, Mexico, Malaysia and
Azerbajian.

The ministers discussed
education issues in their countries
and how collaboration can
facilitate the resolution of these
issues.

Vietnam Minister of
Education Xuan Nha Phung
Antarctica ice loss increases
Global warming is melting ice in
Antarctica faster than ever before
— about six times more per year
now than 40 years ago — leading
to increasingly high sea levels
worldwide, scientists warned
Monday.
Already, Antarctic melting has
raised global sea levels more than
half an inch (1.4 centimeters)
between 1979 and 2017, said the
report in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS), a peer-reviewed US
journal.
And the pace of melting is
expected to lead to disastrous sea
level rise in the years to come,
according to lead author Eric
Rignot, chair of Earth system
science at the University of
California, Irvine.
“As the Antarctic ice sheet
continues to melt away, we
expect multi-meter sea level rise
from Antarctica in the coming
centuries,” Rignot said.
A rise of 1.8 meters (six feet) by
2100, as some scientists forecast
in worst-case scenarios, would
flood many coastal cities that are
home to millions of people around
the world, previous research has
shown.
For the current study, researchers
embarked on the longest-ever
assessment of ice mass in the
Antarctic, across 18 geographic
regions.
Data came from high-resolution
aerial photographs taken by
NASA planes, along with satellite
radar from multiple space
agencies.
Researchers discovered that from
1979 to 1990, Antarctica shed an
average of 40 billion tons of ice
mass annually.
By the years 2009 to 2017, the
ice loss had increased more than
sixfold, to 252 billion tons per
year.
Even more worrying, researchers
found that areas that were once
considered “stable and immune
to change” in East Antarctica, are
shedding quite a lot of ice, too,
said the study.
“The Wilkes Land sector of East
Antarctica has, overall, always
been an important participant in
the mass loss, even as far back
as the 1980s, as our research has
shown,” Rignot said.
“This region is probably more
sensitive to climate than has
traditionally been assumed, and
that’s important to know, because
it holds even more ice than West
Antarctica and the Antarctic
Peninsula together.”
Ice loss
The total amount of ice in the
Antarctic, if it all melted, would
be enough to raise sea level 187
highlighted his country’s strategy
of sending close to 17,000
students to foreign universities,
including UK universities as
a centerpiece program of their
internationalization efforts.

The
ministers
of
education of Mexico and
Malaysia shared the challenges
of education reform in countries
with newly- elected leaders and
the urgency to show results.

Mexico Minister of
Education Esteban Barragan
called attention to the need
for innovative approaches in
ensuring access to difficult to
reach and disadvantaged groups.
According to Chairman de Vera,
RP-UK collaboration has been on
an upswing the past years. The
Chevening scholarship program
has expanded and provided
support to 124 scholars over the
past five years.
The
Chevening
scholarship
program
has
produced prominent alumni
like Congressman Ron Salo
(University College London),
Ambassador of the Philippines
to the World Trade Organization
Manuel Teehankee (London
School of Economics and Political
Science), Peace Advocate Anna
Tarhata
Basman
(Durham
University), Journalist Mikaela
Papa (Royal Holloway University
of London), and University
of the Philippines’ President
Danilo Concepcion (Queen Mary
University of London).

Through the facilitation
of CHED since 2016, 10
Philippine universities like UP, Ateneo De Manila University,
Bicol University, Central Luzon
State University and Saint Louis
University partnered with seven
top UK universities led by Queen
Mary University of London,
University of Liverpool, and
Coventry University to develop
and offer Joint Masters and
PhD programs on data science,
food systems, meteorology,
food security, disaster risk and
reduction, among others.

These programs allow
Filipinos to earn a joint/dual PHL
and UK degree at half the cost of
a UK education without leaving
the PHL. Thirty-three Filipino
scholars are now enjoying its
benefits.
CHED
is
also
collaborating with the British
Council to help Filipino faculty
members get their postgraduate
studies in health and life sciences,
environmental resilience, energy
security, agri-tech and digital
innovation,
and
creativity
through the UK Newton Fund
Programme.

The collaboration efforts
have expanded from scholarships
to joint degree programs and
research between universities
in the two countries. RP-UK
educational collaboration will
now expand to adult education,
promoting English proficiency
and open distance learning
to make sure that the Duterte
administration’s promise of
sustainable human development
is achieved. (CHED)
feet (57 meters).
By far, the most ice in Antarctica
is concentrated in the east,
where there is enough sea ice to
drove 170 feet of sea level rise,
compared to about 17 feet in the
entire West Antarctic ice sheet.
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is
the world’s largest, containing
roughly half of Earth’s freshwater.
Until now, most research has
shown that the majority of
melting is happening in the West.
A landmark study published in
Nature in June last year found
that Antarctic ice melt had tripled
since 1992, but did not show
significant melting in the east.
However, a subsequent study
published in Nature in September
2018 analyzed layers of sediment
from the ocean floor deposited the last time the Wilkes Subglacial
Basin, part of the Eastern
Antarctic due south of Australia,
melted around 125,000 years ago.
That study found the massive
basin would start melting again,
with a sustained temperature rise
of just two degrees Celsius (3.6
Fahrenheit), the cap called for in
the landmark Paris climate deal to
avert runaway global warming.
The latest research shows that
East Antarctic melting deserves
“closer attention,” according to
the PNAS report.
Warming ocean water will only
speed up ice loss in the future,
and experts say sea levels will
continue to mount for centuries,
no matter what human do now to
rein in climate change.
The Collins glacier on King George Island has retreated in the last 10 years and shows signs of fragility, in the Antarctic
on 2 February 2018. Glaciers that melt before your eyes, marine species that appear in areas where they previously
didn't exist: in Antarctica, climate change already has visible consequences for which scientists are trying to find
a response and perhaps solutions for the changes that the rest of the planet can expect. / AFP PHOTO / Mathilde
BELLENGER / TO GO WITH STORY BY MATHILDE BELLENGER