UP was known as University of "Pila" or University of Queues ( as translated in English not UQ as University of Queensland). Under the term of Professor Nemenzo as President, the university emabarked on massive effort to computerise and wire the various colleges and departments. This was quite successful that UP has now on-line enrolment and registration. In theory, a student need not leave the dorm or home to enlist in courses that he/she needs to take. In theory there is no need to queue.
But there is a snake like queue outside my faculty office. Why? Upon closer inspection and chatting with those queueing, many students complain that the subjects they wanted had long been filled up. I thought that many students just had little chance to register on-line.
But that was not the end of the story. The real reason is that the three major colleges of the university, science, social science and arts and letters have priority in enlistment in Revised General Education Courses. So their students were able to enlist first.
So the poor students from other colleges have the crumbs. Reminds me of an episode in the Gospel about crumbs and dogs.
One possible solution is have more courses and sections on offer. But we don't have enough professors to handle these courses. The university needs more professors but doesn't have the resources to pay them well. And the good professors are opting for early retirement (so they can get a good paying job somewhere else).
The effective moral of this story is that even with improvements in technology, we can't do away with ancient problems. If technology is able to solve problems, we have to look into other factors such as the social, economic and political milieu that technology is being used or is used to advance a development agenda
But there is a snake like queue outside my faculty office. Why? Upon closer inspection and chatting with those queueing, many students complain that the subjects they wanted had long been filled up. I thought that many students just had little chance to register on-line.
But that was not the end of the story. The real reason is that the three major colleges of the university, science, social science and arts and letters have priority in enlistment in Revised General Education Courses. So their students were able to enlist first.
So the poor students from other colleges have the crumbs. Reminds me of an episode in the Gospel about crumbs and dogs.
One possible solution is have more courses and sections on offer. But we don't have enough professors to handle these courses. The university needs more professors but doesn't have the resources to pay them well. And the good professors are opting for early retirement (so they can get a good paying job somewhere else).
The effective moral of this story is that even with improvements in technology, we can't do away with ancient problems. If technology is able to solve problems, we have to look into other factors such as the social, economic and political milieu that technology is being used or is used to advance a development agenda
Comments
I agree with you that we cannot do away with ancient problems. Technology is able to solve some problems but not all.
Good blog!