HOW TO MAKE EDUCATION AFFORDABLE TO ALL:

by Wilhelmina S. Orozco

Every enrollment time, parents are agog where to get the next tuition fees to be paid to schools. Always the problem persists, money for tuition, for books, for uniform if there need be one, and for allowance on a schoolday to school day basis. Aside from that they have to worry about some schools charging for projects to be done by students who if they cannot cough up the fees, then they will not earn credit, will not be eligible for honors, and worse, could be asked to repeat the course.

Our education is truly oppressive. If I were to study to day, I don't think I would be able to study at all. In fact, I nearly was not able to finish my MA if Ateneo had not allowed discounts in my tuition. Then when I reached the doctoral level, if I did not get that UP presidential scholarship, which required a very high standard for qualification, I would not have been able to finish my doctorate in Education at all. It was an auspicious time because I also lived in my mother's place so that I didn't have to worry about shelter and food as her household provided that.

I don't want our youth to suffer what I had gone through. I would like education to be a breeze. Those students who latch on to the false camaraderie offered by frats and other sororities are just simply desperate for recognition, for guarantees that once they graduate a group would insure that they would have a job, gain acceptance in society and most of all probably achieve high profile in their chosen fields.

Hence to these neophytes, education is not a breeze at all but a big burden and the temptations and fears are there to allow oneself to be beaten black and blue just to satisfy that predatory and blood-lusting urges of their masters, then hopefully to be accepted as member and “insure” whatever they want to be insured.

Alas and alack, they are false promises. Before they could realize their dreams, some students die in the initiation rites, breaking the hearts of their parents. Hence, our educational institutions are now searching for the best way to curb the malpractices of fraternities and sororities too, if not totally obliterate them from school promises.

Moral strength

Actually, the solutions can be found in the schools themselves. The students subjected to such taunts should be strengthened morally, their self-esteem boosted by the school environment. And which section should be doing that? The guidance counselling section. That should be strengthened and counsellors should be sensitive to the plight of every, every, every student, and not consider them as numbers to be attended to.

I used to teach in this college where a frat student died. Every morning there were four or five students who committed infractions in our classroom. Due to their untenable acts, I had had to send them to the counselling office. What happened, did they change at all? No. They did not because they were the same people whom I had to send over and over again to the counselling office.

I became a terror not only to the students but also to the counsellor, who was instructed to be lenient to students as they are paying their tuition. And at that time, recession was setting in. The school was afraid of having a reduced number of enrollees.

What was wrong there? Moral change was not possible with the counsellor, and the school as well because they were more for protecting their jobs and their school earnings.

1. Strong Counselling Office

Hence for a true solution to this hazing practices, the counselling office must have a strict program that will instill among the students very high standards for judging friendships, as well as viewing their future in the fields they are embracing. No longer should they judge their classmates as reliable partners for life but only temporarily while they are in school. (Unfortunately, some frats can promise the earth and the moon to the neophytes who then realize later on they have been had. Some sorority girls I know never reached their dreams – of finishing their course. Or even of practicing their course later on. In other words, the connection between education and career became awry.)

What kinds of programs should the counselling office have? The DepED and the CHED must ask the counsellors themselves because they know the conditions of the students in their respective schools. I believe in the teachers' capability to assess the situation and their ability to come up with solutions to the problem.

2. Gender Studies. But also, the counselling program should include gender issues to be explained to the students so that they would not be waylaid by sweet talks on what a “true man” or “true woman” is. Such gender studies should be made compulsory at all courses.

3. JOB PLACEMENT OFFICE. The school or university itself must have a job placement office wherein all graduates will be able to find help after graduation or even while schooling so they can help their parents support their studies. This is a very important component in solving the problem of dependence on frats and societies that will provide “kunu” that job opportunity.

Or the school must offer entrepreneurship so that the students could have a choice whether to get employed or self-employed and have a business of their own.

Sources of budget for education:

4. Budgets for Food

The government should remove budgets for food and merienda at meetings of whatever kind, and place them for giving scholarships to educational institutions. That would be a very big chunk of money. The government officials already have their salaries and honoraria. They can pool their money to provide themselves with food and merienda when meeting to discuss how they can help the people. Lubus-lubusin na nila ang pagtulong. Let them sacrifice and give up those meal allowances. Anyway in private practice, employees are made to spend for their own food. They are not given free dinners but they still perform well and this occurs in many offices.

The necessity to give education to our youth is much more important than giving food during meetings to officials.

5. Budgets for Public Works

Whenever I pass the Maria L. bridge along E. Rodriguez Avenue, after Araneta Avenue in Quezon City, I see dozens of men standing about. There is also a big hauler which is supposed to remove all the wastes and garbage that have fallen on the creek. Do I see them working? Not at all. So many dozens of times, they are just huddled together, talking. No, I didn't see them lift a spade at all. How long has this been going on? It has been there since the last two years. What does this mean? The budget for working on the bridge problem is bloated as it allows for the workers to laze around.

One suggestion I would make is for the DPWH to give a monthly update of what each project has finished so that we would not suspect that some hanky-panky is going on.

Also, the COA should assess each budget to determine if it is enough or more than enough to finish a bridge or any project. For example, in the arts, an animation film was started, with a P5 million budget. However, it stopped when P4M had been expended. What happened to the P1M? Nobody knows. The artists who worked on the project felt cheated by the producer. And that suspended feeling that bugs every artist, of not being able to finish a film is always there.

That is already psychologically destructive.

So, all those agencies which have the tendency to bloat their budgets must undergo pre-accounting phases. In this way, we could be assured that there is a sincere effort on the part of the government to curb corrupt practices.

Then whatever savings we can get could always be shifted to education.

6. School espionage

To date, espionage in schools and universities is done only to ferret out the radicals who are inducing unknowing new students to join the underground or the legal fronts of underground organizations. There is none that is focused on fraternity and sorority activities. Why because some of the school officials are themselves members of these organizations. So anything that will curtail the expansion of membership of their societies is deliberately suppressed. That is tantamount to disloyalty to the principles of education, to my mind.

School officials who do that must be asked to resign because they are not serving the needs of the students but their societies.

Hence, schools must minimize appointing individuals who have frat or sorority connections unless they swear to uphold the principles of education always.