SAT for studes next year? Not so fast!

Last Monday afternoon, as an original Pari-an resident I went to my old barangay to witness the formal turnover of the Heritage of Cebu Monument from the Cultural Heritage Foundation, Inc. headed by his beloved eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal and into the hands of the City of Cebu, headed by Acting Mayor Michael Rama and the Pari-an Barangay Council headed by Capt. Mark Balaga. Whenever people complain to me that the Heritage of Cebu Monument wasn’t given its proper place especially with tourism groups, the reason for that is lack of funds. The funds of the Cebu Archdiocese are given to more priority projects.

So this turnover is significant because Pari-an has the reputation as the oldest barangay in Cebu which also has Colon Street the oldest street. It also has the Yap-San Diego residence, arguably the oldest house in Cebu, the very well-preserved Casa Gorordo and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) headquarters.

With the Taytayan Heritage Group holding weekly meetings at the Yap Sandiego house, I’m sure that Barangay Pari-an would evolve into a major tourist destination for Cebu City; more so that funds would now be made available for this monument. Perhaps the most important thing is that culture and heritage is very close to the heart of Acting Mayor Mike Rama. That alone is something to look forward to when he becomes mayor.

* * *

If the Presidential Task Force on Education (PTFE) will have its way, the Department of Education (DepEd) will soon be implementing a mandatory Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for all graduating high-school students moving to college. This according to Ms. Mona Dumlao-Valisno, the Presidential Adviser on Education and the PTFE.

I remember when Ms. Valisno was chair of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), she suggested that all government-owned schools scrap Nursing as a course as it only resulted in Filipinos graduates leaving their country for better pastures in a foreign country. She apparently believed that government funds were being wasted in educating our nurses when they should be shouldering the education for our nurses. I was appalled by her line of thought!

She never realized that this country didn’t have enough medical institutions for our people to accommodate all nursing graduates nor did she give any importance seeing Filipinos getting gainful employment in medical institutions abroad that brings a lot of dollars back to our coffers to help our nation’s balance of payments. As of late, remittances from Overseas Foreign Workers (OFW) have hit the US$ 12 billion mark annually!

So now, she wants kids going to college to take SAT. Her primary goal this time is to overhaul and raise the standard of education here especially in the first two years of college to bring it up to international standard. I have no quarrel with that goal, except that, she shouldn’t be implementing SAT this coming school year in 2009 unless she gives our youth better professors or teachers, something that DepEd hasn’t yet done. Why punish students for not meeting international standards when they SAT next year?

What happens to the kids who fail the SAT? Raising our current dismal standard of education to be at par with international standards is the right thing to do. But the method of implementation suggested by Ms. Valisno that is totally wrong. I hope that our DepED officials in Region 7 would give Ms. Valisno a piece of good advice: Do not to monkey around with the lives of our students and the effort of their parents. We want to raise the bar of education in this country, but in the right and proper way.

If there is anything positive in this report, it is that at least the DepEd has finally recognized that something must be done about our educational standards which have gone to the dogs. This translates to fewer jobs available for Filipino graduates as those students that come from schools with higher standards like in Hong Kong or Singapore are the most preferred.

If at all, at least our students in Cebu City are lucky that the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) has embarked on an eight-month future leadership training program dubbed the Young Minds Academy (YMA), which is currently having its third batch of 104 students age from 12 to 30 years old. I’m really glad that someone is doing something to give our students a chance to a better life. If you want to know why RAFI is doing this, it is because our educational system has failed our students. Thank God for the kind hearts of the Aboitiz Family and RAFI.