A Call for Vigilance: Mondays or Wednesdays?
Let us remain vigilant.
The new Academic Calendar has been approved. The peculiar thing is, the usual Wednesdays-off has been changed. Now, Monday is our official day off, aside from the weekends.
On February 4, 2008, the Board of Regents, approved the resolution submitted by UPD Chancellor Sergio Cao recommended by the UPD Executive Committee, observing Mondays-off. This is in line with RA 9492, an Act rationalizing of national holidays amending for the purpose Section 26, Chapter 7, Book 1 of Executive Order No. 292, as amended, otherwise known as the Administrative Code of 1987” or the holiday economics. The resolution states that, “due to the enactment of RA 9492, most holidays, except those of religious significance will be shifted to the nearest Monday, the academic calendar will now observe Mondays off to avoid interruption of classes that fall on Monday. (UPD Executive Committee, January 24, 2008)”.
After the enactment, Chancellor Cao called upon the colleges to conduct consultations for the said shift. However, resolutions of such consultations have failed devastatingly to represent the sentiments of most students.
Constant vigilance is not for its own sake. Same efforts have been seen in the case of the UP Visayas for instance. So that after implementing the same policy, students and the faculty members have successfully brought back the Wednesday-off Academic Calendar. This same call of constant vigilance goes to all UP students.
It is in this regard that the University Student Council emphasizes that such policies, albeit left entirely on the discretion of the Chancellors, directly affect students and faculty members alike. Having said that, we call that such changes be studied further where students and faculty members are involved and consulted accordingly. It is our resolve that any measure or policy be truly reflective of the student’s, as well as the UPD community’s, interest.
This statement was prepared by the USC Academic Concerns Committee.
the new policy is ok, at least i can go to my province and spend more time with my family because of the longer weekend…there’s nothing wrong with the changes in the academic calendar, in the same way the university wants to minimize interruptions in classes, so should the students be in adopting to this change as this will ensure that we get our money’s worth with less class interruptions and more interaction with profs, we are UP students after all…
It surprises me sometimes to see that some people approach all changes to the status quo as something of a threat. The new policy is hardly anything to get all your feathers ruffled about given that as it is, it seems that it would most likely benefit the students and faculty and even if it didn’t, the policy would do very little tangible harm to the university. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an open mind about this policy that aims to minimize the interuption of classes. What is so special about a wednesday anyway that we absolutely must not have classes on that day? Many colleges even offer wednesday classes despite it being an official “day-off” from classes. At worst this policy is value neutral.
I’m skeptical about the university admin as much as most students, there are many things that they have definitely messed up. But to stubbornly antagonize every single policy that the admin churns out isn’t going to help anything or anyone for that matter. Doing so just reflects a persecution complex that isn’t constructive at all. I do hope that the students remain vigilant, but more importantly I hope that they choose thier battles wisely too.
I know some people hold their wednesdays dear to regroup one’s self instead of going into a 4-day straight war. In short, malaking tulong sa cramming nila, haha!
At this point, the argument for the student-values rectification cues in. Pero hindi mo talaga mapipilit sa mga tao na “time management” lang ang katapat nyan. That wednesday can sometimes be a crucial tool to their own brand of time management.
I for one am unaffected by this change of schedule, but I know this could have an adverse effect on many people I know. This policy is antagonized by many simply because it antagonized many. Do not grow weary of complaints, complaints won’t come if service was competent in the first place.
@05-21830
I agree with you. This Wednesday thing for me is more ‘psychological’ than ‘economical’ for the reason that it actually gives you the preparation time for an MTh/TF class in between (the W).
For all that lovely rhetoric UP students churn out about doing the taxpayers proud and getting real-world education, they should be the last people to want to waste the taxpayers money simply for “psychological” reasons. The monday-off policy works in accordance with the new government policy of moving national holidays to mondays. So if you’re constantly missing monday classes, it is your education that will suffer with your entire monday class trying to catch up on the syllabus or not finish the syllabus altogether (=you learn less) Moreover, in the ‘real-world’ I doubt you can go up to your boss and say I need a break in between my work-week becuase I can’t handle my workload without it.
Probably the only thing I don’t like about this new arrangement is that it’s tougher to schedule org events, which used to be either on a Friday or Tuesday. Now we have to compete with every other org event for attendance on Fridays. But besides that, it’s manageable, I hope.
You indeed waste more tax money by failing and extending your residency. You fail by not being able to comply with the pressure of school work. You usually get more pressure without the regular wednesday sabbatical. So you might be able to finish the whole syllabus, but in the end you still fail.
In the real world, you have at an average a couple of jobs to attend to. In the college world, you juggle with (assuming you got the minimum 15 units) 5 different “jobs” that comes in different forms. Workload management is even more flexible in a job, as long as you meet the deadline, whereas students have to contend with stringent abeit usually uncontrollable (thanks to CRS & the whole enlistment process) schedule patterns. Having already undergone an OJT, I can attest to this, at least, although of course, this is subjective to each individual, but then since it is subjective, this point is moot then.
So we’re back to the wednesday as a buffer. Do not underestimate this “psychological reason”, as any factor that could have seriously negative repercussions on your overall execution should be considered. And this definitely is a factor.
As an aside, I will just reiterate the fact that contradicting these changes aren’t done just for the sake of being anti-admin all the time. If the admin is reasonable in its policies & implementations, it won’t get widespread flak.
I seriously doubt that students will be failing subjects left and right simply because they don’t have thier precious wednesday off. I’ll beleive this absurd scenario when I see atleast a 50% rise in the number of students failing but until then, this reamains a completely absurd theory.
Failing a subject because you couldn’t handle the workload is a lame excuse. Besides, many students can handle 5 day school weeks and tons of other extracurricular activities (even with wednesday as a ‘dayoff’ many colleges hold wednesday classes with many students who take them). If one fails and extends residency solely for the reason that monday is the new ‘day off’ thats a sad testament of his/her abilities. What if UP had never had this “wednesday off policy” then would you have not gone to UP and would you have failed all your subjects? This is UP, the home of the Philippines’ best and brightest, if they can’t handle a school week then the Philippines must be in deep trouble.
As for the real world, workloads vary with some people juggling a 20 hour work day and some with a 5 hour work day. But subjective as it may be, the bottomline no matter what your workload is you cannot use “I couldn’t handle my workload” as an excuse. Tell your boss or a client that and I guarantee you, thats a sure way to get fired.
I loved my tuesday nights off as much as the next person, but to say that one cannot survive without it? You have got to be kidding me. To insist on status quo simply because it is one’s comfort zone is just plain stubborn. So your work week changed? Adapt; deal with it.
This policy reasonable, well justified on pragmatic assesment. What is so unreasonable about moving free wednesday to free monday so that we miss less classes (because all the national holidays are observed on mondays now)? If anyone can give me just one good tangible consequencial harm of this policy (becuase obviously we wont see herds of students failing subjects left and right) then I’ll gladly conceed.
What is absurd is that you have to see failures left and right to begin to think that this sudden influx in the system can affect student performance. Perhaps it is because you see Wednesday offs as R&R days. In actuality, students use this day off to polish and finish work from their Mondays and Tuesdays, and used to prepare for their Thursdays and Fridays. In the vacant time left, one can fit in a class or two. So you see, the Wednesday off scheme is nothing different from a 5-day work scheme, it is made so as a buffer for the lack of the godly time management skills you speak of.
You feel strongly that this is inconsequential, perhaps in your own theory. You, however, are not in the shoes of all the students in UP. You cannot speak for them because you are not privy to all their subjective conditions. Not everyone is capable of time management skills that you seem to have in theory. Not all courses have tame workloads that can be easily equated to simply juggling 2 jobs at the time, especially for thesis-period students. And “Best and the Brightest” doesn’t necessarily equate into surgical academic precision, hell, Einstein failed in elementary. It is foolish to perceive Iskolars ng Bayan as machines. How idealistic.
I certainly don’t claim to speak for the majority of the students, I only speak for those I know who don’t take this change too lightly. If there is a sentiment that is isolated, it certainly isn’t the one that I speak of. You can go on with your notions, however you cannot impose on the academe to automatically adjust to this sudden change as if it were just a wrinkle in a shirt that needs ironing. Some things might seem logical, however, like this, it’s not practical. Let’s just see and leave it to the students to decide whether they are humans or machines.
If there is something that needs debate, it is the government’s holiday policies.