UPCAT: Failure in many ways

If the UP Oblation represents Man’s naked aspiration for learning, the Philippine STAR’s front page photos of the mad scramble to enter UP was a clear evidence of how we as a nation especially our leaders have failed the youth, the ones Jose Rizal referred to as the hope of the motherland. The vivid photo of the young woman being carried out on a stretcher makes me wonder if she was in anguish from the physical torment aspirants had to go through, or from the realization that she was “out of the running,” failed and won’t be able to get a shot at the entrance exams thereby losing all hope of a free education from the top state university.

The images clearly demonstrated the University’s failure to anticipate the sudden surge of applicants, failure to undertake the necessary crowd control measures. And based on available information, it is evident that the University did not meet the required steps for public information especially for applicants coming from public schools.  It seems that “exclusive schools” or private schools all know that they can submit “applications in bulk.” So each year, private school registrars or principals help their aspirants to prepare for the UPCAT starting with the completion of application forms. All of these are collected and sent by messenger or courier service to the Registrar’s Office in Diliman.

On the other hand, the majority of applicants coming from public schools were on their own, relying on their time-tested practice of “unahan sa pila” or lining up as early as 24 hours before the acceptance of applications. This explains why the line of 10,000 plus applicants complete with tents reportedly stretched along the academic oval. According to a UP graduate at the scene, things got worse on the actual day of application when people driven by cars got off at the front of the queue while clueless of the line that had stretched through the night.

Senator Chiz Escudero who heads the Senate committee on education told me that the major reason for the “mad scramble” was due largely to the fact that going to UP is now for free based on the Free Tertiary Education Act that he authored and was pushed for by President Rodrigo Duterte. People including the government simply failed to predict or anticipate the surge in applicants. I learned from Senator Escudero that the Board of Regents, which he sits on, will be meeting early today to discuss what happened and what needs to be done for those who failed to even come close to the building!

Quite frankly whatever solutions they come up with will merely address the application process, the confusion and lack of organization, the lack of thorough public information campaigns. BUT they will not address the real problem, which is WE NEED MORE UP units around Metro Manila as well as the major cities and regions of the Philippines.

For as long as UP has a quota based entrance exam, we will never address the imbalance or the perpetual problem of having more and more needy and deserving applicants every year while UP’s budget is played with by politicians and bean counters who, after having graduated from UP no longer give a shit about those who come after them. How will the Board of Regents address the obvious prejudice or discrimination in their system that is advantageous to the rich, the private schools and applicants who have the funds and capacity to pay for couriers and applications in bulk? Public schools can barely make ends meet and need parents to help clean and prepare schools each year because they don’t have any maintenance budgets.

Private schools provide tutorial services or referrals to their students who want to prepare for the UPCAT one year in advance. Some public school students don’t even have enough lunch money while fighting through the crowds! So in the end the UP quota system won’t generally be about getting the best and the most deserving, the rich and well off will once again dominate the exams while a mere handful or small percentage of “poor students” get their free education.

I wonder if the law that President Duterte and Chiz Escudero gave life to was intended to give “rich kids” free education? Many middle and upper class families want to send their kids to UP because of the quality of education and the culture of creative and or critical learning as well as comparatively cheaper cost compared to private and church owned universities. Free education is supposed to be for those who can’t afford one. During my time in UP the phrase that defined this was “socialized tuition.” To my mind the idea was to determine the income of families, the number of dependents/students, and by way of formula arrive at a reasonable tuition fee based on the family’s capacity to pay.

To be quite blunt about it, this problem has been in existence for decades. The problem is people in government, education and legislation are simply lazy or can’t be bothered to think honestly, creatively and confrontationally. Let’s all be honest about the fact that we need more SUCs like UP or clones and spread them around Metro Manila and urban centers as “city colleges” like UP Padre Faura aka UP Manila. Let’s confront the fact that the quota system meant to filter applicants to match a limited budget is actually  “class” discriminatory by virtue of the advantages of the rich and their private schools. Let’s be creative. Set up city colleges for the initial two-year course or the general education requirements and then let students apply to their intended department for their main course or degree in the main UP units. Education is both a right and a necessary investment of government because better-educated citizens create a better and equal society.

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