The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has endorsed the Socioeconomic Research Portal for the Philippines (SERP-P), the country’s first and free electronic repository of socioeconomic materials produced by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).
Created for students, educators, and policymakers, SERP-P aims to provide the public with easy and immediate access to socioeconomic information from its network of more than 60 partner institutions.
In a memorandum circular, CHED recently cited SERP-P as a knowledge resource for its regional offices, state universities and colleges, local universities and colleges, and private higher education institutions.
SERP-P was cited as a successful government-operated e-library in Senate Bill 477 or the proposed “Philippine Online Library Act” by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.
Gatchalian highlighted the importance of pandemic-proof or ubiquitous and accessible educational resources, especially free digital education tools like the SERP-P, which ensures continuity in learning during times of disruption.
“SERP-P is an example of a successful government-operated e-library, designed and maintained by PIDS. It is an online knowledge resource containing socioeconomic studies and materials produced by PIDS and other academic and research institutions. For the first half of 2022 alone, SERP-P already had 11,843 users with 35,219 page views,” Gatchalian said in the bill.
Since 2000, SERP-P has played a crucial role in linking government policymakers and research institutions while establishing an extensive repository of socioeconomic research in the Philippines.
