5. West Visayas State University- La Paz
West Visayas State University (informally referred to as West or WVSU) is a public normal research university (a university system) located in Western Visayas region of the Philippines with its main campus in La Paz, Iloilo City. It was established formally in 1924 as Iloilo Normal School under the Philippine normal school system during the American colonial period in the Philippines under the tutelage of the Thomasites, but it dates back its founding 22 years later when the university’s College of Education was founded in 1902. It later became West Visayas State College in 1965 and became a university and changed its name to West Visayas State University in 1986.
The university is one of the twenty accredited Philippine Universities of the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific and one of the most prominent institutions in the Visayas in the field of Teacher Education, Nursing and Medicine.
The West Visayas State University (WVSU) is a university system composed of different separate campuses and the West Visayas State University Medical Center. The main campus is composed of nine schools and colleges and one institute. The Philippine Commission on Higher Education has also designated the university through its main campus as the Center of Excellence in Teacher Education and Center of Development in Nursing while the Lambunao Campus as Centers of Development in the programs of Agriculture and Forestry