blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The unpleasant reality of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's 1.39 billion peso budget cut for next year has finally dawned on faculty, staff and students of the University of the Philippines , the Philippines' national university as defined by law. Administration officials have warned university constituents that the university will likely not hire anyone for next academic year. This includes non-academic staff (clerks, records examiners, department secretaries etc), research staff and faculty. This also means that professors who will retire at the end of this year won't be replaced by young assistant professors, research projects and programs can't hire new graduate students to work in the labs, and no new clerical staff will be hired. And we haven't even touched upon the subject of salary adjustments and promotions, which are even more likely to be cut or put on hold! This bodes ill for the university (and a "baptism of fire" for the new...

We have this science graduate who got his biology degree this year with a magna cum laude to show and now is quite in the dumps. After having won accolades from the university like best thesis research and of course the McL plaudit, he applied to work for a top notch hospital as part of the research team dealing with patient satisfaction. Given the good scholastic record he has, he got accepted. But one month into the job he quit. The reason is that he was placed under job training first (where he got a pay he did not expect to get) and the change of orientation from the grade oriented life as an undergraduate to the output and team building orientation of life in the corporate private sector was quite of a shocker. He complained to me about "poor labour practices". And this leads me to think that our undergraduate training philosophies are horribly out of sync with what is to be expected in the world at large. Note that I refuse to use the cliche "real world" sinc...

Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ for the unexpected. This is something to brighten up any Pinoy parent's day. Somewhere in our troubled world, all is well and good. There is a Catholic school that doesn't charge tuition! Amazingly according to the parish priest, Father Haney "The collection plate on Sunday helps pay for the school". More amazingly The priest also says ""There is no required payments. There are no hidden payments. It just comes from the generosity of the people of the parish." Best of all the good padre doesn't beg for cash. He just gives a financial accounting and position of the school to the parish. How does the parish do it? The churchgoers answer "1 Corinthians 16:2" The lessons of this small parish school should be lernt by our bishops and priests who find politics a their vocation and not following Christ as well as the secular state, whose ministers find stealing money as the highest vocation. Heaven will be on ear...

The University of the Philippines was ranked 398 in the latest 2007 Times Higher Education survey (THES) of top 500 universities worldwide. Across Katipunan Road, the Ateneo de Manila came at 451. De La Salle and University of Santo Tomas once part of the 500 have dropped out of the list. The UP website has this article about taking the survey results seriously. Ateneo's administrators have this to say and explain in detail how the rankings are made. The UP and De La Salle have opted out of the surveys. The THES apparently used the 2006 data. Both Ateneo and UP have said that the surveys do not really reflect the contribution of the university to Philippine society. Unfortunately, the surveys cannot be ignored. In the globalized world economy, higher education is more of a commodity than ever. The THES could change market preference for universities. That's why overseas universities take these surveys quite seriously. One Aussie university even had a press release on its ranki...

Albert Einstein said it best "imagination is more important than knowledge" Here he comments on the importance of wonder in the search for knowledge. Einstein is famous for a few things. Firstly he proposed relativity as a theory, secondly for writing US President FDR about the possibility of a nuclear bomb in German hands and third for flunking his PhD exams twice. Einstein is the icon of the flunking student in school; primary, secondary or grad school! Geologist Henry N Pollack wrote a book entitled "Uncertain Science, Uncertain World" which aims to reach non-scientists and the public at large about how scientists work and how science is done. It is about the problem of uncertainty of conclusions in science. But one chapter has an important commentary on science education. The reason why the public has a difficulty understanding science is because of inadequacies in science education. Pollack writes "Children are born as natural scientists. They emerge in a ...

I have a niece who passed the UP College Entrance Exam and now is a freshie at the College of Business Administration. She dropped by my faculty office to say hello on the first day of school, June 12. I was curious to find out how much her parents paid for fees and I was shocked. They paid about 20K pesos for this semester. I have attended the sometimes cum gravitas , ironic, flippant and comedic sessions of the University Council. In council the breakdown and schedule of the increased fees were shown as a Powerpoint presentation. The Chancellor (who chairs the sessions) explained how this increase is much needed given the parlous state of the university. True, the university's share of state subsidy has not increased and costs have increased. The results of this lack of funds is evident everywhere. The classrooms are overcrowded and there is a serious safety and security on campus. The university can't even pay for an effective security force to ensure students' safety. ...