MIT: At par with the world's best eng'g schools

MANILA, Philippines - In the Philippines, the word engineering is synonymous to the Mapúa Institute of Technology. For over 85 years the Mapúa Institute of Technology has been producing topnotch engineers who have been leaders and undisputed pioneers in the engineering profession and the academe. Last Nov. 23, at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel in Manila, Mapúa celebrated yet another milestone in the institution’s eight decade old tradition of excellence: the acquisition of the ABET accreditation. The event, which was graced by Yuchengco Group of Companies chairman Alfonso T. Yuchengco and the school’s different deans and administrators, was thrown to honor the hardwork and dedication of the men and women behind the ABET accreditation.

“The goal was to get a third party to take a look at us to see whether we have attained international standards or not. It’s really different when an external party looks at you rather you yourself saying that you are great,” says Reynaldo B. Vea, president and CEO of Mapúa.

ABET is a non-profit organization established in the United States which screens and accredits post-secondary education programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology in the US and also internationally. For a university to be accredited, it needs to go through a rigorous programs and syllabi reorganization to align itself with the standards of ABET. Mapúa did not just get accredited for one program, 10 of its programs were given the ABET seal of approval elevating it to global status standards.

“It is in line with our vision to be an international center of excellence. And it seemed to us that the first step really is to formally establish ourselves as being at least at par with the best in the world. In a sense that was what we have achieved with this accreditation and that was our very objective,” relates Vea.

“We wanted to help the country establish an open fact that there are engineering programs in the Philippines, even with the shorter education of formation of years as an engineer, but in any case give as outcomes, graduates who have the competencies and the attributes to practice globally. So we wanted also to be a statement for the whole country that the Philippines is capable of producing world class engineers. So we did this both for us and the country,” Vea shares.

Throughout the process of acquiring the accreditation, the Mapúa community has not only gotten a sense of pride and dignity, it has also become a much stronger and whole family.

“For the entire Mapúa community, the attainment of the ABET accreditation I think is something that has united us over the years. There’s a sense of pride, a sense of satisfaction, sense of achievement for the entire Mapúa community in this accreditation,” says Vea.

With this accreditation, the future of Mapúa looks even brighter than it already is. Their continued passion for the elevation of education in our country has paid off and has bore fruit not just for the institution, but also for the entire nation.

“We’ll keep on honing our systems for continuous quality improvement. So that we continue to attain the educational outcomes we designed in ever higher levels. Over the years that we were doing the accreditation, that was the thing that was developed in Mapúa. Because at the start we had to ask ourselves what do we want? And then we said we want this, we want the continuous quality improvement system, we want outcomes-based education, that is something that I think at this point, cannot be taken away from Mapúa; and that is the value, that we were able to generate out of this exercise, so we would continue to work on enhancing the value of Mapúa education,” says Vea.