EDITORIAL -Unhealthy state

The death of Kristel Tejada only showed the unhealthy state of the country's education structure. It's too bad it had to cost one more life for authorities to seriously begin taking efforts to overhaul the system.

A freshman at the University of the Philippines Manila, Tejada dreamed of becoming a surgeon to help her four siblings despite life being too difficult in a deprived area in Tondo, Manila where her family lives. Her father, a taxi driver, only earns an income enough for the family to support three meals a day.

But even at state-run learning institutions, one cannot expect everything would go well as expected in order to graduate. Strict rules, especially on the tuition obligations, would sometimes drive poor students to quit.

So Tejada drank a silver cleaning solution after knowing that she could not pay her tuition for her to continue her studies and died later at the hospital. Reports on her suicide immediately swept through the country like a wildfire, with the UP Manila administration drawing condemnations from various quarters.      

The death of the 16-year-old student could have been prevented had the university allowed her to continue her studies despite her tuition woes. Before taking her own life, she was reported to have been suffering from depression when the school's harsh tuition policies barred her from attending classes.

It is sad to note that the university's strict tuition policies caused many of its students to quit, killing dreams of those who wanted to help their families out of poverty once they graduate. For a school run by the government, the UP Manila should have enough funding from the state to help poor but deserving students.

The government has been boasting that the country's large pool of dynamic young talents has helped revolutionize the economy of late. However, it has taken little efforts to sustain the booming labor force.

 Since budget for state universities and colleges remained scarce, schools were forced to increase tuition fees just to sustain their operations. Now, we can only expect that the increasing student dropout rate will soon take its toll on the economy.