I think there should be no state or
local government-owned universities; all universities including UP should be
private. Then government will give education vouchers to ALL university
students, flat rate. say, P25,000 per university student per semester, maximum
of 10 sems, and students must maintain a minimum of weighted grade average.
If the student enrols in a P50,000 school
fees per semester, he or his parents/guardians will simply pay the balance. Or
he can look for other scholarships to fill the gap. Poorer students can enrol
in cheaper universities and pay nothing. This way, every university student is an
"iskolar ng bayan", funded from taxes. And universities will work
hard to improve their education to attract more students who all have money.
If government should subsidize
university students, it should subsidize ALL, not just those in state
universities. Currently the policy is very discriminating. If you enroll in UP,
PUP, etc., "iskolar ng bayan"
ka but if you enrol in UE, UST, etc., you pay on your own even if your
parents pay taxes, part of it goes to state universities. Mini-cronyism in
education.
A friend commented that in Nordic
countries like Norway, education in all levels is free. Well, this is a
function of how much social surplus a society has. High productivity, low
population countries can afford that. But there is nothing wrong with parents
paying for the education of their kids. After all, there should be more
personal and parental responsibility in any society, and less government
responsibility. Alangan naman
painom-inom, pa-party-party lang parents, arguing that "education is
government responsibility, not parental responsibility." Let parents and
guardians have more responsibility, more purchasing power, and have more
choices.
About results of the annual bar exams
and the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) graduation, this is one fixation by
the mainstream media and the public. Each year, zero exception, the bar top
notchers and PMA top 10 graduates, are in the front pages of national
newspapers and in TV news. These guys are achievers, true. But there are other
guys who are also great achievers, like people who come back to the country
with a PhD in number theory like Fidel Nemenzo. Or a PhD in astrophysics like
Reina Reyes and so on. And they are nowhere mentioned in mainstream media.
Which somehow speaks how politically
biased, or even shallow, the mainstream local media is. If you are the future Senator
or Congressman/woman or President because of your cool achievement in the exams
for lawyers, and if you are a future general with command and control of a huge
army of men and women with guns, bombs, tanks and jet fighters, the public should glorify you now.
