UPLB studes spend night on campus to secure subject slots

The University of the Philippines Los Baños campus in Laguna. PHOTO FROM UPLB.EDU.PH

Hundreds of students camped out at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) grounds from Saturday night to early Sunday morning to secure slots for their subjects after the new online enlistment system bogged down.

UPLB University Student Council Chair Merwin Jacob Alinea said students initially trooped to the Physical Sciences (PhySci) building after it was announced at about 10 p.m. that they could access the Student Academic Information System (SAIS) from there.

The SAIS, the new online enlistment system, had been offline for two days starting July 29. It was being used for the first time in UPLB.

Photos circulating online showed students with their laptops outside the PhySci building.

Students also flocked to the Graduate School building, Agronomy building, Food Science building, School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM) building and the Men’s, Women’s, Veterinary Medicine and ACCI dormitories in the hope of accessing SAIS.

Alinea said that despite camping out from 10 p.m until 4 a.m., some of the more than 500 students still failed to access SAIS and enlist subjects.

The campout happened during the third day of registration in UPLB for the first semester of academic year 2016-2017.

Alinea said that apart from being inaccessible, SAIS was plagued with problems with regard to its system interface and functionality.

“In terms of system interface, hindi siya maganda. Sa functionality, hindi rin sakto sa UPLB students. Marami pang dapat gawin para lang makapag-enlist,” Alinea told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.

He said the university student council had proposed reverting to SystemOne, the system previously used by UPLB, but was turned down by the administration.

“Despite our contentions against SAIS, sinabi ng admin[istration] na hindi failure ang SAIS unless wala talagang student na nakapasaok [sa website],” the student leader said.

He also alleged that SAIS, which is part of the eUP initiative under incumbent UP President Alfredo Pascual, was a commercialization scheme.

UPLB Perspective, the official student publication of UPLB, reported former Student Regent Mico Pangalangan as saying that the UP administration spent P750 million for the eUP project.

“Up until now, shrouded pa rin yung transparency ng eUP. P750 million daw yung nagastos pero wala pa ring exact data ang makakapagsabi kung yun lang talaga or nadadagdagan pa,” Alinea said.

All 11 student councils in UPLB released a common statement on Saturday calling for the junking of SAIS, saying the enrollment system was a “total wreck” because of it.

“All Student Councils Assembly (ASCA) of the University of the Philippines Los Baños firmly stands that Student Academic Information System (SAIS) should be junked for this is a manifestation of disservice to the student body, and this is a system brought by the Pascual administration that further perpetuates commercialization of UP education, and disenfranchises the right to education of every Iskolar ng Bayan,” the statement read.

Many students took to social media to decry the inaccessibility of SAIS, making #JunkSAIS and #UPLB trend on Twitter.

The eUP team has since apologized for the glitches and claimed full responsibility for the delay in the enrollment of students.

“In light of the recent rescheduling of enrollment due to SAIS downtime, we take full responsibility. We understand the gravity of the situation, and we empathize with everyone’s frustration. It seems our team and partner ePLDT’s efforts to remedy the situation did not meet your expectations, and for that, we sincerely apologize,” the eUP team’s statement said.

Alinea said they would continue to ask the UPLB administration to reconsider its stance on SAIS and to extend the registration schedule.

Classes in UPLB are scheduled to begin on August 3. /rga