EDUCATIONAL institutions will have to be more creative and must collaborate with other schools to achieve their goals despite a rampaging pandemic, an official of the Central Luzon State University said.

Renato Reyes, the school’s vice president for academic affairs and director of the International Affairs Office, said higher educational institutions and state colleges and universities will have to “step out of their comfort zones” to push their internationalization programs.

“The current situation poses greater challenges to HEIs and SUCs planning to implement or strengthen their internationalization program, but this same situation will also offer new opportunities,” he said.

“Internationalization is measured based on the following criteria: number of faculty scholars who completed their advanced degrees abroad, the number of academic and scientific exchanges made among international partner institutions, the number of joint research publications with international partners, and the number of student internships both inbound and outbound,” Reyes explained.

He stressed the need for collaboration not only in the international level but also within the university level.

“Every individual from top to bottom of the HEIs must internalize internationalization. As we always say, internationalization must be in every heart and mind of every stakeholder,” he said.

To advance this vision, the Commission on Higher Education issued several memorandums such as the ASEAN International Mobility for Students Program to enhance quality assurance in HEIs through an outcomes-based and typology on student internships abroad.

The CLSU is a member of the ANTENA Project, a capacity building cooperation project co-funded by the Erasmus + program of the European Commission. The program aims to increase the academic quality and research of universities in the country through the development of internationalization capacities.

The ANTENA Project is led by the University of Alicante in Spain with the support of the University of Montpellier in France and the European Foundation for Management Development.

The other members include the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, Benguet State University, De La Salle University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, Saint Louis University, University of San Carlos, Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, and CHED.