UP holds referendum on calendar shift

MANILA, Philippines - The University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, yesterday started its three-day referendum among faculty members on the proposal to move the opening of classes from June to August.

The results of the referendum, which will cover more than 1,000 faculty members, are expected to influence the position of the UP Diliman administration on the proposed shift.

The UP Board of Regents has approved the implementation of the shift on a pilot basis in all of its campuses except Diliman, which has yet to decide on the matter.

Based on the guidelines for the referendum, all regular faculty members with the rank of assistant professor and above are qualified to participate in the referendum.

Instructors, meanwhile, were enjoined to respond to the parallel but separate survey “to allow the administration to assess the sentiment of instructors regarding the academic calendar.”

The results of the vote will be canvassed on Thursday and forwarded to the office of the chancellor, which will then come up with the campus position.

In a press conference yesterday, some UP professors against the shift of the school calendar criticized the decision of the campus to hold a referendum despite the earlier decision of the university council not to endorse the proposal.

In December, the Diliman university council composed of full-time faculty members with the rank of assistant professor and above voted not to endorse the proposal of its administrators and recommended “a more in-depth study to understand the possible advantages gained as well as challenges encountered when effecting such a shift.”

But UP Diliman Chancellor Caesar Saloma earlier said that less than a quarter of the total council membership attended the meeting when they voted not to endorse the proposal.

He said the campus might come up with a stand on the issue next month.

Contentions

In a phone interview, student regent Krista Melgarejo said they will also ask the UP Diliman administration to consider the position of the students before coming up with a position on the issue.

Earlier, the militant youth group Anakbayan denounced what they described as railroading of the academic calendar shift.

“The manner with which it was passed, without consulting the students of the various UP campuses, clashes with UP’s supposedly democratic traditions,” said Anakbayan.

The group reiterated its opposition to the proposal, saying the shift will not solve the problems of inaccessibility due to expensive tuition and other fees and the lack of funding for state universities.

“It will discriminate against students who come from poor peasant families, as the vacation months of the current academic calendar coincide with the harvest and planting seasons for many food crops,” the group added.

The Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP) also said earlier that Philippine universities are not yet ready to compete with its counterparts due to “inadequate academic infrastructure and resources to carry out a fully competitive higher education institutions.”

“Our university suffers from the syndromes of developing economies: problematic tenure for faculty, contractualization of academic personnel, aging faculty, dwindling state subsidies, the inability to attract younger faculty and foreign scholars and researchers,” read the CONTEND-UP statement.

“Added to these problems are the insufficient facilities to accommodate foreign students and inadequate support for faculty research and extensions programs,” it added.

The organization said the Philippines will be a part of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) economic hub “only for the richer partners to exploit their advantages in resources and infrastructure.”

“Malaysia, Singapore and China are the emerging destinations for international students,” it said.

Earlier this month, UP Diliman organized a forum on the academic calendar to look into the proposal.

During the forum, Michael Tan, dean of the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, noted that students coming from poor families might face financial difficulties with the implementation of the shift, which would move the start of semesters to August and January instead of June and November.

He noted that some families, particularly those involved in farming, often call August as the “hunger month” due to the lack of funds following the planting season that starts in June. He said money often comes in by September during harvest.

He also cited similar possible problems in January as Filipinos often spend a lot during the Christmas season.

“But who knows? Maybe we can learn to spend less during Christmas to pay for tuition,” he said.

Tan also cited the effect of the shift to the commemoration of holidays, such as Araw ng Kagitingan (April 9) and Labor Day (May 1), which will be a part of the new second semester calendar. He said schools might use the days leading to it to highlight their significance and remind students of what these holidays are about.

With the new shift, however, Independence Day (June 12) will fall on a term break.

Tan also stressed that the country may have to think about moving the scheduled elections if the shift will include basic education, noting that teachers serve as election inspectors.