How to lower tuition but teach more

Enrollment for the next school year is ongoing in many Philippine schools, and I’ve been wondering if my observations for this year’s enrollment, around tuition in particular, are correct.

I am observing more families having problems paying tuition, and this is happening at all levels (primary to collegiate), in public and in private schools. I write as a school administrator, a teacher, and a parent with enrolled children, and I write based on accounts from many parents, who are comparing the past few years.

The consensus is clear: this is one of the most difficult years for meeting tuition and other school expenses. Many have to borrow money, even when they go on installment plans, and worry that they will have problems meeting their installment plans.

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I am affected as well, as I pay tuition for relatives, fearing I may not be able to meet payment deadlines. I feel shame and anxiety as new deadlines come. All this is happening at age 74, despite multiple sources of income, including, ironically, several teaching appointments.

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I have been teaching since 1975 in both public and private institutions and have witnessed these crises in schools, communities, and families. Beyond these crises, I have seen the struggles and intermittent victories of teachers and students demanding the right to a decent education, including the struggle against corruption in education, which wipes out many gains in educational standards.

Teaching across disciplines is a common interest among faculty in transdisciplinary education, where teachers, students, and staff work together. In Guang Ming, track and field majors dabble in music and theater. The majority of our college rondalla members are Buddhist studies majors.

A good example emerged last semester when our students took a course in physiology and anatomy, required for sports science and performing arts. The outcome? Most appreciated was the importance of understanding how the body functions, including taking body vitals and understanding lab results. They reported that no matter their major, they could apply these skills to home, self, and community care. Most exciting were student inquiries about pursuing health degrees, including medicine.

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Again, what does this have to do with tuition? We need more transdisciplinary programs so students can gain a broader education. For example, we encourage sports education students to take culinary education subjects and joke about opening a gym attached to a restaurant, while also engaging in community nutrition projects.

Not everything has to be taught as a formal subject. We have a multistrand program, in which every two months, students rotate their study of a local language, which widens their job opportunities after graduation.

Think of how human resources are more efficiently (and enjoyably) used, e.g., no need to hire a teacher just for Ilocano language instruction when native speakers are proudly teaching their mother languages, including students turned teachers.

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Boldness comes with this kind of education. We recently got a grant to teach robotics as early as possible, and from the students, reception of the pilot classes, we anticipate more arts students acquiring an interest in robotics applications for theater, music, and as I picked up from Chinese schools, robotic marathons.

One-track education is expensive and produces students, who are, well, one-track. I recently ran into the mother of one of our most brilliant students in University of the Philippines (UP). I was chancellor of UP Diliman when she was pursuing a degree in molecular biology, which I find, together with many life science students, totally thrilling. But her real love was music, in particular, composing.

She was studying molecular biology but was not getting the high grades required to remain in the program. I was approached by the student and could relate to her situation, having been pressured into the life sciences, and in UP, into social sciences. After some (smile) struggle and degree shifting, I finished veterinary medicine (which I still love), but ended up doing a master’s in anthropology, then medical anthropology.

Through the years, I have taken seminar courses in areas like anthrozoology (relationships of humans and animals), ethnopharmacology (medicinal plants), and other “obscure” fields that I do well in, which have earned me research grants, and given the Inquirer a crazy polymath who enjoys pursuing “crazy stuff.” But put us crazies in a classroom and we are most animated by students who are happiest in fields of work that are tough enough just to be spelled out.

I’m not saying we need to teach everything in a transdisciplinary frame, but we do need more schools that can train teachers who excite students. I remember debating with university superiors about training more “experts” for export abroad. Last Saturday, at the graduation ceremonies in Guang Ming College, I thought of our graduates who would likely be healers and musicians, and chefs and varsity players.

And know what, we’d be producing more experts in life and living.

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