Crisis over wrong subjects now over for UP Baguio, students

THESE ARE most of the 27 University of the Philippines Baguio students who almost failed to graduate today, Thursday (June 25) due to an advising error. All’s well that ends well, however, as the students are on the graduation list already. EV ESPIRITU/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY—Glen Darrel Cabote clowned around on Wednesday by spreading out his arms to simulate the Oblation pose.

Cabote had just finished putting up a tarpaulin streamer featuring him and 26 other students who almost failed to join the graduation ceremonies of the University of the Philippines Baguio today (Thursday, June 25).

The 27 senior students of the College of Arts and Communication (CAC) completed the required number of units for their courses and were on the list of graduating students until school officials discovered last month that they took the wrong general education (GE) subjects. Six of the students are graduating with honors.

The CAC faculty took responsibility for the deficiency, saying its faculty advisers failed to monitor if the batch of students was using a checklist under a Revitalized General Education Program (RGEP).

UP students are allowed to choose the subjects they would take at the start of each semester from a menu provided by curriculum checklists. But they were given an old checklist and the RGEP checklist when they were freshmen in 2011, and CAC “did not indicate which batch of students should be using which checklists,” said UP Baguio Chancellor Raymundo Rovillos in a statement.

The CAC faculty went a step further by owning up to the error through affidavits and testimonies sent to UP President Alfredo Pascual, according to teachers familiar with the issue.

On Tuesday afternoon, after an extensive review of the students’ academic records, Pascual and the university’s Board of Regents (BOR) waived the RGEP requirements and allowed the 27 students to join the commencement exercises.

Pascual said the students should not suffer a delayed graduation or deficiencies in their records because of the lapses of their college, according to portions of his memorandum to Rovillos which was read to the Inquirer by a university official.

UP Baguio officials have yet to address the repercussions of CAC’s admission of error on its faculty.

“We did everything we could to ensure these 27 students graduate. If that results in a backlash against us, then we are ready,” said Prof. Jimmy Fong, chair of the CAC Department of Communication.

“I can’t speak for my schoolmates, but if the teachers are sanctioned after fighting for us to graduate, I will offer testimony to bring out the truth about this whole mess,” said Cabote.

But the RGEP will not be around for long. In 2016, the country’s senior high schools, under the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K to 12) enhanced basic education program, will offer subjects that used to serve as GE subjects for university freshmen.

Instead of remedial GE subjects now offered by senior high schools, Rovillos said UP is preparing interdisciplinary GE subjects that would be offered in 2018 to university freshmen. Reports from Vincent Cabreza and EV Espiritu, Inquirer Northern Luzon