N.B. – This is a press release from the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy regarding the shift in the academic calendar. Please feel free to share. Thank you.
PRESS RELEASE
February 8, 2014
Concerned UP professors oppose shift in academic calendar
Unlike some of their colleagues, they are not excited and are very much exasperated.
An organization of faculty members of the University of the Philippines (UP) stressed that synchronizing the local academic calendar so that the first semester would start in August does not guarantee that graduates of Philippine universities would acquire “global outlook and global competencies.”
In a statement, the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND) said that the baseless claim “simply disregards the rich cultural life and peculiar geographical conditions that define each country. Education, including its temporal dimension, is part of the cultural and environmental milieu of the community of learners. We cannot immediately disregard a long and time-tested tradition of opening classes in June for the simple reason of facilitating the flow of information, students, and academic goods.”
While there are other individuals and groups that promote student and faculty mobility in the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and beyond, CONTEND argued that a drastic overhaul of tradition will have an impact on the rhythm of social life and cherished indigenous cultural rituals. “Culturally, the summer vacation of students and their families will be drastically abolished. Festivals, fiestas will also be affected. As universities hold classes in April and May, they will subject their students, teachers and personnel to harsh heat and chastising humidity. There is also no assurance that there will be less rain, typhoons, and flooding during August as the phenomenon of global warming is considerably redefining our climate.”
In a previous statement, CONTEND said, “(W)e refuse to be coaxed into the frivolous debate about changing academic calendar as a way to internationalize (UP)…(C)hanging the calendar should not be reduced to mere question of efficiency and the imperative to accelerate cross-border mobility of students and faculty. Internationalization has to address the wider economic and political context, both regional and global, that define the general contours and orientation of the culture of inquiry we want to create and nurture as well as the learning environment of the students and faculty…(T)he entire philosophy that underpins such change must be debated and carefully weighed. Jumping too quickly into the bandwagon of internationalization is not necessarily helpful for our nation. We have to pause and decelerate to think hard about these questions: Whose internationalization? Internationalization for what? Only when these major questions are put into the table for discussion that we can rethink the mission and vision of the University as both national and international in scope, and not just follow the policy recommendations of bureaucrats who are often detached from real intellectual life of the university.”
CONTEND called on concerned faculty, teachers, educational workers, students and parents to strongly oppose the calendar change being peddled in the mass media by the bureaucrats of higher learning institutions. Such bureaucratic imposition which passes over genuine democratic consultation and scientific study, CONTEND said, must be exposed for what it truly is – “a desperate measure of universities to conceal their impotence in addressing the real problems of our deteriorating educational system.”
For verification and more details, please contact Prof. Gerry Lanuza (CONTEND UP Chairperson) at (0932) 845-5258.