Public school woes

Another school year began yesterday  as about 1.5 million students in Central Visayas returned to public schools. A warm welcome to all our students.

It’s  another year with the same problems schools have been facing for years. Many people wonder why we continue to suffer lack of classrooms, teachers and  books with apparently no solution in sight. They are quick to blame corruption in government as the root cause of the lack of resources to meet the growing demands of the educational system. We have been advocating the eradication of graft and corruption in government but failed. I am at a loss as to what our government can do to effectively address the problems of our country’s educational system.

Many were hopeful that the new administration of Noynoy Aquino would bring change  but it seems that the problems are deep-seated and require more than a year to attend to. The Aquino administration wants to eradicate graft and corruption in government but has not been successful so far because many of our government officials are used to the culture of corruption that was in a way encouraged under the past administration.

Apparently, the Aquino administration lacks the political will to pursue their advocacy given that Transportation and Communication Secretary Ping de Jesus just resigned or was booted out of office due to a problem with another department  official who happens to be close to the President.

It is indeed a great challenge for the President to prove his sincerity and seriousness to put his government in order given the DOTC  incident. He must act swiftly and fairly  to settle the problem and keep it from becoming another controversy that might hound his administration.

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The breakup of the political alliance of Cebu City South District Congressman Tommy Osmeña and Mayor Mike Rama is already affecting some of our local government officials especially in dealing with  a public official whom they  do not want to  identify fearing a political backlash.

The barangay captains are very careful about asking  for financial assistance from the city government fearing that they might  be labelled pro-Rama and incur the ire of Congressman Osmeña.

How will the members of the City Council  deal with their mayor considering that all of them belong to Bando-Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan and their leader  Osmeña? What is making it more confusing is the position taken by Rama that he is bolting from the party that has not welcomed him  but remains cordial to the City Council members.

Some barangay officials with a very cordial relationship with the mayor cannot find a reason to fight the mayor, though there are barangay captains who have been considered unfriendly to Mayor  Rama given their hostile position even before he bolted the BO-PK.

What is important is that public service should not be disturbed as a consequence of this latest political development. Our political officials should see to it that public service continue  despite their political  differences.

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I am happy to report that our Department of Political Science of the University of San Carlos is welcoming its third  block of first year students since we transferred from the Talamban Campus to the Main Campus last May.

Students enrol on line through our I.T. provider ISMIS. The system may not be perfect but it is convenient for  students who need not come to the campus to suffer the inconvenience of enrolling in USC.

Our students in Political Science can log on to  ismis.usc.edu.ph to enrol online or call 253-1000 local 158 for information.