No sympathy for the poor

 

 

In the Philippines, a country so full of promise but has not really taken off to the next stage, most Filipino families consider their children’s college education as a viable option out of poverty. The paradox is you have to be well-off to get a college education today in the Philippines.

 

Despite the economic downturn, people continue to remain optimistic that a college degree is the key to a good job. It is the contemporary belief that we educate ourselves to get a job; that education could determine one’s economic destiny.

 

In an interview after his daughter Kristel Tejada, a first year Behavioural Sciences student at the University of the Philippines (Manila), committed suicide for failing to pay her school tuition, Christopher Tejada repeatedly stressed that it was his daughter’s hope and dream to finish college so she could lift the family out of the claws of poverty. The Tejadas, most particularly Kristel, saw education as a means to a better life, a tool to rewrite their story. Poor families share with the better-off and the rich this aspiration for upward mobility through education. This is true anywhere in the world, whether in rich or poor societies.

 

In an outpouring of support, students from the University of the Philippines join
a vigil for Kristel Tejada. Photo courtesy of the Philippine Star. Click image to
view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKua6x3hxU, Kristel Tejada laid to rest.

Education is a right proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, it shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages, and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

 

But here comes an uninformed and somewhat skewed opinion from Jose Montelibano who writes a column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer where he challenges the basis for subsidizing public education (See http://opinion.inquirer.net/49217/college-subsidy-for-whom-for-what). Subsidized scholarship, he says, is “an extension of an old tradition when benefactors choose to support the most deserving who cannot afford a college education. This has less to do with education and more about rewarding talent, or an act of charity.”

 

Obviously, Montelibano doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

 

Education has never been, in our colonial past or present, a charitable act. When the state provides funding to a public higher institution of learning like the University of the Philippines (UP), it is not doling charity to its students, but it is performing a fundamental obligation to make education accessible to its citizens. There is a big difference between charity and obligation which Montelibano apparently doesn’t seem to understand.

 

While the state recognizes education as a right, it must also be aware that higher education cannot be for everyone. The self-evident truth is that higher education also discriminates. Education will help everyone to improve their lot, this is almost a universal truth. But not everyone can enter university or college because there are standards that must be met. There are other ways the rest of society who are not accepted to institutions of higher learning can have real opportunities for improving their lives. Not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant or a nurse. In the same way as not everyone can have the skills and aptitude of a mechanic, an electrician, a carpenter, or a plumber.

 

Montelibano writes: “Government scholars, though, must have a different criteria [sic], a standard that demands service to the people ahead of service to the self or family. The state must help those who are determined to help the common good, who are committed to become models of good citizens.”

 

However, this is not the purpose for the establishment of the University of the Philippines.

 

The expectation is noble and dignified that when they graduate, Iskolars ng Bayan will reciprocate the government for its assistance. But imposing it as a student’s contractual obligation is not a fair quid pro quo when it is the government’s fundamental responsibility to make education accessible. Service to the people is a loose concept that could include students joining protest rallies against the government for its anti-poor policies, for its incompetence in governance, or against a do-nothing Congress, or demanding minimum wage increases and improving working conditions.

 

It is the emphasis on contractual thinking based on commercial or private agreements that is rotting the core of the subsidized or socialized tuition policy of public universities such as UP.

 

Because the institution has adopted a policy to subsidize or socialize tuition, there is an implied authority that it can restructure and readjust tuition anytime on permissible grounds like the effect of inflation on the cost of running the university. The idea of restructuring tuition rates on the basis of inflation is essentially a commercial argument, a justification that comports with concerns for the bottom line. But it is not that simple since it is the obligation of the state to make education accessible that it must consider all other revenue options rather than conveniently impose on the students and their families the burden of equalizing cost with revenue.

 

The declaration of policy for the establishment of the University of the Philippines is very clear that “the State shall promote, foster, nurture and protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality education.”

 

Under Section 9 of its Charter, UP has a mandate to take affirmative steps to enhance the admission of disadvantaged, poor and deserving students. This should be what we must be concerned about, not Montelibano’s suggestion that state-sponsored scholars should not use their education for themselves but for the people, an arrogant idea that comes from the smugness of a privileged life.

 

A World Bank study has pointed to inequality in access to higher education in the Philippines as a continuing problem, together with the glaring gap between the labour requirements in the market and the quality of graduates produced by local colleges. The study also found out that although more and more students are entering college and universities over the years, the growth is concentrated on people belonging to higher-income households. To address this inequality, the Work Bank proposed that there should be more grants of scholarships and loans to deserving students.

 

But more access to student loans does not guarantee completion of a college degree, and finding a good paying job after graduation.

 

In the United States, steep hikes in student tuition and fees have increased the debt levels of both students and universities. The cost of university per student in the U.S. has risen by almost five times the rate of inflation, making it less affordable and increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Even though student loans are often available, the idea of repaying student loan debt, with high interest rates and low job prospects, is a significant roadblock for many.

 

So, if availability of student loans is not a guaranteed formula in equalizing access to higher education, what can be?

Click link below to view  College Tuition: 1k to 75k per semester with graphic
showing the wide range of tuition at private and state universities in the
Philippines, courtesy of GMA News Online.
 http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/300312/news/nation/college-tuition-1k-to-75k-per-semester

The University of the Philippines has in place what it calls a Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program, or STFAP for short. Under this policy, every UP student regardless of capacity to pay and financial need is subsidized since tuition and other fees are much less than the direct cost of their education. Furthermore, it socializes tuition through grants and subsidies for tuition, miscellaneous and laboratory fees based on ability to pay and financial need of the student.

 

On paper, the STFAP sounds adequate and a decent program. In practice, however, it doesn’t work.

 

Since everyone is subsidized, students from economically privileged families enjoy this benefit even if they don’t need the subsidy. They pay tuition that is substantially way lower if they would enrol in a private university that offers the same quality of education. For example, the average cost per semester for a course in civil engineering or computer science at UP is P20,000. In Ateneo, the cost would be between P75,000 to P80,000. Only children from well-to-do families can go to Ateneo, so the high tuition is not a financial concern. In UP, even the poorest but bright students will not cut it for a year, a situation that befell Kristel Tejada.

 

UP’s STFAP assigns brackets for students based on family income and other family characteristics and socio-economic indicators. These brackets are good for one year, which is unrealistic because it does not take into account the changing economic conditions of families and society as a whole like the possibility of unemployment as a result of lay-offs or economic slowdowns. Kristel Tejada’s father was laid off from his job but Kristel remained slotted in her bracket although the family has lost its declared income.

 

What UP should be doing is to charge wealthy students the equivalent rates prescribed by comparable private universities and use the difference as additional amounts available for subsidies to economically disadvantaged students. This, to my mind, is the right way to socialize tuition, not to apply the subsidies across the board that also benefits the wealthy. But as tuition is steadily increasing at a record-breaking pace in the last two decades, it is even feared that children from wealthy families might consider enrolling in public universities, a fact that UP’s STFAP has not considered into account. This raises the spectre of student quotas in addition to economic brackets, which could possibly displace slots for needy students, thus making the socialized tuition program even more irrelevant.

 

To address the crisis in higher education in the Philippines, President Noynoy Aquino has developed its government’s response called Road Map for Higher Education Reform (RMHER), which identifies three fundamental problems: lack of overall vision, deteriorating quality, and limited access. But instead of eliminating barriers to entry to college education, Aquino’s RMHER simply continues the emphasis of his predecessors (Ramos and Macapagal-Arroyo) on the eventual commercialization of higher education, its subservience to the needs of the global market, and gradual abandonment of state-funding. RMHER intends to focus on five priority areas, which include agri-fisheries, mining, electronics, services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

 

During the term of President Fidel Ramos, the government implemented a Long-term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP) which stressed cost-efficiency and global competitiveness. Ramos also signed the Higher Education Modernization Act (HEMA) allowing state universities and colleges to embark on joint business ventures with the private sector, privatize management of non-academic services and determine their own tuition and other fees. As these institutions started generating higher internal income, government funding of higher education also begun to fall.

 

When President Gloria Arroyo assumed the presidency, she revised the LTHEDP to make public universities and colleges self-sustaining, with the ultimate goal of abandoning state funding for higher education. President Aquino’s higher education reforms are already in the LTHEDP, and nothing in the RMHER is new. It merely reiterates past proposals which have already been enacted but rejected by students.

 

Aquino’s RMHER intends to socialize tuition for all state universities and colleges following the UP’s STFAP model that emphasizes cost recovery without limiting access among the poor. As mentioned here earlier, the experience of UP in socialized tuition resulted in periodic restructuring of tuition fees. Instead of widening access, the STFAP has become instrumental in excluding many indigent but deserving students, of which Kristel Tejada is the latest victim. A study of the STFAP shows that in two decades it has decreased the percent of student population enjoying free tuition, from 20 percent in 1991, to less than a percent at present.

 

There is a much bigger picture than Kristel Tejada’s suicide, but the young student’s death symbolizes the fast accelerating exclusion of the poor from access to higher education such as the University of the Philippines. Kristel wasn’t alone in her financial predicament, but UP and the government don’t seem to care.

 

If Noynoy Aquino has extended his sympathy to the Tejada family for the loss of their daughter, that, Mr. Montelibano, is a charitable act. But the president seems to have no place for charity in his heart.

Lies and bogus credentials

Lies, according to Plato, are not only evil in themselves, but infect the soul of those who utter them. A very uncompromising view that insists adherence only to the truth, not allowing any room for white or convenient lies. This kind of moral life that Plato seems to suggest is very difficult to sustain, for lying becomes unacceptable in whatever circumstances.

To Plato and others who subscribe to this rigid moral standard, lying is actually a double crime. To tell a lie, one must know the truth. And knowing the truth but concealing it results in committing a double crime.

But in reality, sometimes the truth need not always be the whole truth. There are those who are vey skillful in masking the truth, in putting up pretences that sometimes are taken as the honest truth. This is very common nowadays when people try to embellish their educational credentials, such as deliberately misrepresenting an Ivy League education or possessing an advanced degree in economics, computer science, or winning scholarship grants or honours in college.

The fact of dropping out of school as a caché seems reserved only for a very few who have achieved enormous success in later life such as the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Their achievements dwarf anything before, like training or any course or seminar mentionable that could have prepared them to succeed. To some of us who are less intellectually endowed, education—or to be more specific, a college or university degree from a reputable school—becomes the golden ticket in assuring acceptance or ease of accessing the corridors of wealth and power in today’s society. No wonder students in their thousands have taken to the streets of Montreal to protest the skyrocketing increase in college-tuition rates in Quebec. Nowadays it is hard to get a job without a college or university degree.

Diploma Mill. Photo courtesy of Sfaiez. Click link to view "How a Dog Earned a Life
Experience OnLine MBA Degree," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9HBV0ch2Xs

There are others, however, who have cleverly managed to outfox the classroom and its rigid rules of learning by having their diplomas or credentials manufactured with the sole intent of moving up the social ladder. The CEO of Yahoo! quit earlier this year when it was discovered his degree in computer science was bogus. In 2006, the CEO of RadioShack stepped down after he had exaggerated his accomplishments at a California Bible College. In 2002, the share price of Bausch+Lomb plummeted when its CEO admitted that his MBA was nonexistent.

Even the academia is not even spared when one would think they are the best equipped in filtering out counterfeit degrees. The vice dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education was forced out when it was revealed that he never earned the PhD listed in his resumé. In 2010, a senior vice president of Texas A&M lost his job for faking both his master’s and doctorate degrees. He also garnished his CV with a fiction about having served as a Navy Seal.

In 2008, Toronto Star’s Dale Brazao reported about an investigation that uncovered close to 220 Canadians with bogus credentials, from one holding a fake MD degree from St. Regis University, a phony school, to a law student who submitted a faked bachelor’s degree to gain admission to Osgoode Hall Law School. The third-year law student was even offered an articling position with a Bay Street law firm when law school students were having difficulty getting articling positions. The Star investigation also exposed Peng Sun, a York University graduate who forged university degrees from real Canadian universities for $4,000.

Faking college degrees are a multi-million dollar industry, according to the Star investigation, and even threaten government security. The gang the Toronto Star busted raked in more than $7 million in sales to 131 countries, selling everything from high school diplomas to PhDs and medical degrees. Dozens of U.S. government employees were on the list, including a White House staff member, National Security Agency employees, a senior State Department official, and a Department of Justice employee.

Surprisingly, a fake diploma can easily be obtained on-line. A company that specializes in fake diplomas advertises itself as the “#1 source for 100% premium diploma fakes from both popular schools and schools that no longer operate!” According to its website, the company has in its stock the largest database of diploma documents anywhere, which allow them to guarantee the most authentic replica diplomas. Their products include fake high school diplomas, fake college degrees, online degrees, fake university degrees, fake GEDs, college certificates, fake TESOLS, etc.

Fake Diploma. Photo courtesy of fakediplomas. The company that sells
this diploma advertises that it is the best in authentic-looking novelty
 replacement degrees,

Of course, these fake diplomas are for entertainment purposes only, not to be used to garnish a resumé or a job application. These phony diplomas are sold as novelty documents that look and feel real, but are designed to trick family and friends. It’s absolutely not illegal to purchase this type of documents. But these are not the fake diplomas we are referring to.

Credentials, whether one’s diploma or alma mater, are all that matter over everything else. There are high expectations when one earns a degree from the country’s best schools. American presidents elected to lead the most powerful nation in the world are most often schooled in Ivy League universities, either from Harvard or Yale. British prime ministers usually come from Oxford or Cambridge, and so with the leaders of the rest of the world—being trained if not in foreign schools, in the best schools in their countries. The same can be said of business and industry captains, they’re traditionally from the best schools, too.

In the Philippines, politicians and business leaders are by and large products of the University of the Philippines (U.P.), Ateneo de Manila University or La Salle University. Among these schools, U.P. seems to carry the most aura of excellence and association with historical events, talking about the Diliman Commune or the Barricades of 1969, or the fact it was the hotbed of student activism during the ’60 s and ’70s, for instance.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that the U.P. Alumni Association in Toronto would be confronted not so long ago with an accusation that one of its members faked his credentials or pretended he was a U.P. grad in order to gain membership. Such was the big deal its members would give weight to a U.P. education, as if it meant the world for them to set foot in the university’s hallowed grounds.

I remember the time when I was a second year student at U.P., when my cousin and I were trying to win the hearts of two young lovely sisters. My cousin, whose mother died after giving birth to him, and I were born in the same month and were both breast-fed by my mother. So he was more like a brother than a cousin to me. It was after our second date with the sisters that he confided about pretending he was also studying at U.P. The truth was, he was still finishing high school because I left him two years behind in grade school. I played along with my cousin’s little scheme and, if we were to follow Plato’s strict moral compass, then I could also be faulted for keeping mum. It was a good thing we were never put to test by the sisters; otherwise, either one of us could have failed. But that was a harmless youthful prank, no damage was done.

The table changes when one obtains a fake degree and utilizes it in gaining entry to the social class or a higher paying job; this becomes morally wrong. To many of us, credentials signify as if they represent everything. Especially when the diploma comes from a well-regarded institution of learning. It becomes a million-dollar coin that can attract counterfeiters.

When society continues to treat education or higher education not for its original purpose of higher learning but as a golden ticket to a high-paying job or to membership in the elite social class, we will always have those who would take the risk to leap class ranks and counterfeiters who would jump on the opportunity to make a million bucks. Of course, regulations are needed to run after diploma mills and counterfeiters. But unless we change our fundamental view that the aim of education is more than success in landing a lucrative job or a means to jack up reputation for desperate people whose careers are going nowhere, we will always have to co-exist with phony degrees and dreamers of white collar achievement.