In all its colleges, the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) is implementing a four-day class week. This scheme enjoins class schedules to run straight from Tuesdays through Fridays, imposing a strict man date not to have classes on Mondays.
Since the reduction of the number of schooldays from five days to four this semester, regular classes in UPV Cebu College start as early as 7:00AM and some end at 7:00PM.
Belt-tightening
Apparently, the purpose of the UP administration’s initiation of the four-day school week is to save money and cut expenditures short.
With Monday bearing the “strictly no class” mandate, they were certain that the costs for energy consumption, as well as the teachers’ pay, will be lessened—that is, if no make-up classes or other activities are made.
On a dialogue with the UP Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Diana Aure, she said that the rationale for the switching to this schedule is to provide a longer weekend (Saturday to Monday) for the students to be with their families, especially those residing outside the campus or city.
A cost-saving idea we can’t afford
The aforementioned reasons from the administration clearly show that their academic considerations for switching to a compressed school week are usually only an after-thought.
Hence, we question the quality of education affixed with the university’s austerity measures and cost cutting. The grim implications and upshots of this shortened class week are stated herein:
1. Students have less time to complete their next day’s home-work, since classes usually start early and end late.
2. The successive school-days, without any breather at all, only make the students tired, and not necessarily better learners.
3. Some students have three successive subjects, which only drains their cognitive energies.
4. Inconvenient schedules like 11:30AM to 1:00PM classes, which are timed during lunch breaks, also hound the students.
Thus, it only shows that the adoption of this new class week schedule, without prior notice to or due consultation from the students, is but a futile, ineffective and unproductive course of action taken by the administration for cost-saving purposes.
The shortened schedule seems to be exclusively implemented out of blind obedience to the present Arroyo government’s anti-people schemes and anti-student policies for education.
Uphold right to education
We stand firm in upholding our basic right to quality education. In particular, we mean the following:
1. The restoration of the five-day class week (Mondays-Thursdays, Tuesdays-Fridays schedule), with Wednesdays reserved for laboratory and PE classes as opposed to the new four-day class week with its Tuesdays-Thursdays, Wednesdays-Fridays schedule.
This, we believe, will also give students with no laboratory or PE classes on Wednesdays the time to catch up with lessons, assignments and other extracurricular activities that will greatly help in the holistic development of the students.
2. The cancellation of inconvenient class schedules like those held during lunch breaks.
3. The holding of democratic student consultations in the University’s crafting of policies that will indirectly or directly affect the students.
We do not want learning cut back to a minimum level and thus call for the reinstatement of the five-day class week, the intensification of the fight for higher state subsidy and winning of the struggle for a truly nationalist scientific and mass-oriented education in the long run.
We demand what is only just and what is only right – that we be given quality education. And this will not be possible if our class schedules are compressed, if our school-days are shortened.
Since the reduction of the number of schooldays from five days to four this semester, regular classes in UPV Cebu College start as early as 7:00AM and some end at 7:00PM.
Belt-tightening
Apparently, the purpose of the UP administration’s initiation of the four-day school week is to save money and cut expenditures short.
With Monday bearing the “strictly no class” mandate, they were certain that the costs for energy consumption, as well as the teachers’ pay, will be lessened—that is, if no make-up classes or other activities are made.
On a dialogue with the UP Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Diana Aure, she said that the rationale for the switching to this schedule is to provide a longer weekend (Saturday to Monday) for the students to be with their families, especially those residing outside the campus or city.
A cost-saving idea we can’t afford
The aforementioned reasons from the administration clearly show that their academic considerations for switching to a compressed school week are usually only an after-thought.
Hence, we question the quality of education affixed with the university’s austerity measures and cost cutting. The grim implications and upshots of this shortened class week are stated herein:
1. Students have less time to complete their next day’s home-work, since classes usually start early and end late.
2. The successive school-days, without any breather at all, only make the students tired, and not necessarily better learners.
3. Some students have three successive subjects, which only drains their cognitive energies.
4. Inconvenient schedules like 11:30AM to 1:00PM classes, which are timed during lunch breaks, also hound the students.
Thus, it only shows that the adoption of this new class week schedule, without prior notice to or due consultation from the students, is but a futile, ineffective and unproductive course of action taken by the administration for cost-saving purposes.
The shortened schedule seems to be exclusively implemented out of blind obedience to the present Arroyo government’s anti-people schemes and anti-student policies for education.
Uphold right to education
We stand firm in upholding our basic right to quality education. In particular, we mean the following:
1. The restoration of the five-day class week (Mondays-Thursdays, Tuesdays-Fridays schedule), with Wednesdays reserved for laboratory and PE classes as opposed to the new four-day class week with its Tuesdays-Thursdays, Wednesdays-Fridays schedule.
This, we believe, will also give students with no laboratory or PE classes on Wednesdays the time to catch up with lessons, assignments and other extracurricular activities that will greatly help in the holistic development of the students.
2. The cancellation of inconvenient class schedules like those held during lunch breaks.
3. The holding of democratic student consultations in the University’s crafting of policies that will indirectly or directly affect the students.
We do not want learning cut back to a minimum level and thus call for the reinstatement of the five-day class week, the intensification of the fight for higher state subsidy and winning of the struggle for a truly nationalist scientific and mass-oriented education in the long run.
We demand what is only just and what is only right – that we be given quality education. And this will not be possible if our class schedules are compressed, if our school-days are shortened.
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