A Hundred Years of Education and No One Seems to Have Learned

I can't believe the premiere state university, the University of the Philippines, has been around for a century. Disclaimer, this fact is NOT GOOD.

So I pretty much have planned today between going to UP before lunch to settle some stuff and doing initial christmas shopping after. I got there around 10am and submitted this letter, got it endorsed but it needs to be signed over at the dean's office before I could do anything more. I got endorsed but the guy at the dean's office asked me to come back after lunch cause the person whose to sign is in a meeting. So i had pretty much 2 and a half hours to kill since I really wanted to be done with this responsibility. I was glad CAL atrium had wifi so I just hung around checking email and facebook and stuff. I saw an old friend and we had lunch and coffee afterwards. I got back around 2pm with a big disappointment. The freaking letter is STILL NOT SIGNED. And the guy informed me that it will not be done until later this afternoon.

Are you effin kiddin me? I went all the way and waited for more than 3 hours for nothin?

I mean, if it was not gonna be signed today, at least set my expectations. I would've come back some other time and did the rest of the things I have planned today. YOU DON'T OWN MY TIME.

Now this university is going gaga over its centennial. You'd think after 100 years it would have mastered the art of dealing with people. Apparently, somebody forgot all about that. It's so disappointing to see how the institutional character of UP has taken over the humanist thrust of pedagogy altogether. It seems that 100 years of existence does not guarantee expertise after all.

I'm not blaming the guy at the dean's office. He doesn't know any better. For him, I bet, that's just how they naturally do business. I'm not even blaming the dean's office, CAL, or even the university. This seemingly petty instance is an issue of how the entire Philippine educational sytem, in both the academic and the hierarchy levels, is falling in deep shit. The thing is, the government is set at neglecting this sector through ignoring it's budgetary needs because, since the government is the biggest business there is, it just doesn't make sense to invest in something not profitable like education in the business sense.

That sucks. And while the university celebrates 100 years of existence, people sleep well at night knowing that another 100 years of the same shit will not make it any better for anyone.