The sadness of the last school year was a sadness found in isolation. The university with the richest number of poor students, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), had to prioritize continuing its academic operations online. Incoming freshmen students would hear each other’s congratulations through the grapevines of the internet. Come to the start of the first semester, students did not have to go through the pain of writing in longhand for long hours, but their patience got sore from the university’s unresponsiveness.
For 117 years, PUP has been known to be an avenue for students to pursue primary to tertiary education without having to break families’ banks. Starting as a business school, PUP has been a center for trade studies and practical education. But as years went by, the university also introduced liberal arts majors. In fact, this school year, a new degree program--Bachelor of Arts in Philippine Studies--was introduced under the College of Social Sciences and Development.
PUP announced the celebration of its founding anniversary a week before the start of the new academic year. I remember during enrollment, many did not get their courses because of technical mishaps. Despite the cries cutting into the core of the gates of the university, PUP shook the controversy off. I wonder if the incoming freshmen were able to go through the enrollment process properly.
Last month, the university announced that it will be holding the annually-done intercollegiate academic contest. During face-to-face classes, students would gather by college and look for the best pick for each category of the academic contest. From essay writing, quizzes on history, culture, spelling, math, etc., to debate and dagliang talumpati, students are able to join whatever fits their buck.
This time, however, the academic contest was apparently done online. Recently, correspondence students had to join online students because modules were not reaching them despite multiple calls made to the university. Students who did not choose online classes had to bring their chairs to tables that hopefully were vacant.
The academic contest was a symbol of inclusiveness to the many talents PUPians possess. It was not the first time I saw how behind the forced activity, PUP was still preferring to close its arms around its students in an insincere embrace.
This aggression of the university to work with the “new normal” looked like the clearing of a throat, flashing how the university can keep up with modern times. The ever-underprivileged PUPians were welcomed to the celebration out of sheer tolerance of a university that keeps on closing its ears to the cries of student scholars whose forefathers were activists and harsh advocates of a proper and just system.
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Written By: Deniel Floria
Layout and Design by: Dan Kurt Buenaventura and Gerald Reyes
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