See you in September?e

Well, it looks like shifting the opening of classes from June to September is not as simple as it appears to be. But it also looks inevitable. With the country marching  towards 2015, when the so-called ASEAN Economic Community is going to be established, there appears to be no way we can stop the shift. See you in September, indeed, but let us first thresh out a few kinks, serious and minor.

The AEC will, simply put, integrate the economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which the Philippines belongs. This will  mean free trade among the ASEAN nations, allowing the free flow of goods and services, education included, within the 10 member-states.

With 2015 in mind,  the country’s four biggest universities have already started preparations for the shift to an August or a September class opening. Reports said  the University of the Philippines  and the Ateneo de Manila University want an August  opening, while the University of Sto. Tomas  and the De La Salle University  are looking at a September-June academic calendar.

These four institutions can certainly do what they want, considering their autonomous status. What is surprising now, however, is it seems like the government is the one that hesitates to proceed. After hemming and hawing, the Commission on Higher Education has formed a technical study committee to gather all the data about the issue,  reports said, and will come up with a firm position by March this year.

Isn’t the 2015 ASEAN Integration part of the government’s agenda? Where was CHED all this time, that it now acts surprised by all this? The way it looks, the Big Four seems to have pulled the rug under CHED’s feet and are more attuned to the times than this government body.

CHED has initially reacted to the shift in the school calendar by enumerating the problems it will pose, as if it can still stop  the move. As signatory to the AEC, we need to align our economic and other activities with the rest of the Southeast Asian nations if we are to reap the potential benefits of the integration.

For one, we will need to have simultaneous vacation breaks to allow for easier mobility among our manpower, i.e., so it will be easier to move from one university to another. A synchronized school calendar will also foster easier interaction among educational institutions in the region, including students. It will also be a lot easier to align manpower requirements and standards in the entire ASEAN region, expanding the employment opportunities for our graduates.

Yes, there will be problems. Like any shift or transition, changing our school calendar will mean initial and even unforeseen kinks. To start off: we need to adjust, even retrofit things, to hold classes during the hot April-May summer months, and then during the wet, stormy months of October to November. We also need to resolve the question of what to do with high school graduates while they are waiting for the August or September opening; they’ll be off high school by March, so what will they do from April to August.

But as had earlier been pointed out: Do we have a choice? With the Big 4 universities proceeding with the shift, I don’t think the rest of our colleges and universities can stay on with the June calendar for long. Besides, can we keep our June to March academic schedule and still seize the opportunities that the AEC will present once it is in place?

Instead of that technical committee weighing in on the possibility of a September school opening and presenting its pros and cons in March, I think we will be better served if it  went on and studied how best to transition, how to do the shift in as painless  a manner as possible. As it is, CHED has already lost a lot of time not anticipating this problem. The old saying, “Lack of planning on your part does not mean emergency on mine” now applies to CHED; it has to do some serious catching up.

And talking of catching up, Negros has twice the problem of the rest of the country, considering that sugar  is one of the goods that will lose its tariff protection in 2015. While the country is figuratively yelling and yelping about the impact of the AEC on education, there doesn’t seem to be any urgent action on the sugar front. The last time we read something in this regard was when Capitol sent its bright boys to Mindanao together with Governor Freddie Marañon, to look at alternative agriculture models we can fall back on. I recall even Sugar Regulatory Administration head Regina Bautista went with the team.

Anything ever came out of that?*

back to top