Toinks!

Early this week, Senator Chiz Escudero proposed to give all students affected by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng an automatic passing mark for this grading period.

“I urge the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education to pass all students affected by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng in elementary, high school, and college levels for the current semester or grading period,” he said adding that the lessons they learned from this experience are “lessons in life that they will never learn from mere books or classroom work.” – from www.chizescudero.com

I am not a supporter nor a critic of Escudero. I have yet to make a decision of whom to support in the 2010 elections. However, I find this proposal as poorly thought and unnecessary. Here are my reasons:

1. This is not the first time a typhoon has hit the country, nor would it be the last. Are we supposed to pass all students whose families were affected by typhoons, including the ones yet to come?
2. It is a possibility that not everyone in class has been affected by the typhoons. Should these students be exempted from this ‘automatic passing grade’ policy? How do we account for the students eligible for this ’special offer’ and still practice fairness to all?
3. Education is one of the fields we need to strengthen here in the Philippines. How many times have we received comments regarding the Philippine diploma (Desperate Housewives, anyone?)? What we should do is compensate for the lost hours by cutting school breaks or extending the school year. The school calendar must be adjusted, not the grades.
4. Escudero stressed that the students have learned vital “lessons in life” from this calamity. Should we not also teach our young that life is not easy and that we should be strong enough to face what lies ahead, without relying on free rides? Automatic passing grades will only condition the minds of our young to always rely on other people’s sympathies. Life can be full of unpleasant surprises, so we need to strong enough to help ourselves.

I’m sure that we all want to help the victims, but I do not believe this is the right way to do it. Let us help them survive the tragedy, but let us also allow them to learn the real “lessons in life“.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 4:27 am and is filed under Politics, Toinks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.