The whys of university orientation

Title

Creator

SInco, V. G.

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XXI (No. 2) February 1969

Year

1969

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

fl When may an educational institution be consi dered a university in nature and purpose? This paper is an attempt to describe a general test, which needs a sort of orientation. THE WHYS OF UNIVERSITY ORIENTATION Our country will be much better off with an education al system, sufficiently compre hensive, aimed at what our people need as may be re vealed in studies and percep tive observations carried out bv persons qualified to dev elop educational institutions and courses especially fit to promote ideals and values deemed indispensable to the virility of the citizen and the nation. The form, substance, and structure of the cultural, social, political, and moral constituents of the life of our people should be mould ed or erected upon patterns of our own choice and pre ference rather than on pat terns furnished by outsiders. This is not to say that we should disregard or throw overboard everything foreign, for this action is impossible to carry out; and if it could ever be done, it is bound to injure us in several wavs. But we really have to realize that we have adopted foreign practices and notions uncri tically simple because we want to ape the American or European no matter how offensive they may turn out to be to our ideals and va lues. In education, for in stance, we have to admit that our schools, colleges, and universities up to now bear all the distinctive earmarks of their foreign counterparts imitated superficially and in several cases adopted thought lessly and with some degree of belief in their unproved excellence. Much of the poor or defective educational performance, of Filipino stu dents in general is traceable to this feature and practice of our schools in our efforts to transplant the heart of a system that the nature of February 1969 25 our conditions cannot accept and assimilate. Educators of high caliber are called upon to undertake the innovative task. It is a task that challenges mind, the imagination, and vision. But educators, if true to their profession, should accept whatever measure of necesmands for its realization, sary sacrifice such task deWe could not have seen the development of a strong germ of Filipino nationalism if its original champion in the person of Jose Rizal had pre ferred to enjoy the comforts and splendors of the centers of culture and civilization abroad instead of coming back to the modest environ ment of his country with all the discomforts and the relatively primitive condi tions which had to be slow ly changed and improved. It is regrettable that pre sent-day Filipinos with their higher education do not seem, to see the meaning of Rizal’s life in this light and to follow the example it of fers to them. Many of them consciously avoid the educational and cultural thallenges of our provincial communities. There are even some who feel proud and superior in being associated with institutions that have put a superficial sympathy with our nationalistic efforts and that silently adopt a condescending attitude to wards Filipino organs for higher education. It is obviously a matter of personal egoism and conve nience that causes many of us to ignore the challenge of patriotic service outside the metropolitan centers. We see in this aloofness the continued servility to colo nial standards and values and the indifference to the more satisfying rewards of self-re liance which needs time, de termination, and patience to produce superior results. Foundation University of Dumaguete aims at leading the Filipino youth away from strictly colonial values by impressing on their conscious ness the importance of self dependence and the reacqui sition of the best of national traits which are revealed in their history but which have long been over-looked and so may wither on the vine Panorama if not rediscovered, nurtured, treasured, and refined. Coming down to our work at this particular moment, we are now busy preparing our faculty members under the leadership of deans and heads of departments in pre paring a comprehensive pro gram of University Orienta tion for its faculty. It con sists in a series of informal discussions, covering, among other, the following subjects: the meaning, nature, and purpose of a civic and secu lar university; the nature and method of the work of university teachers; the na ture of the work required of its students; the need for adequate libraries, laborato ries, and other facilities as instruments of university education the necessary qua lifications, practices, and at titudes expected of university faculty members;, and the es sential conditions for the maintenance of a university atmosphere as both cause and effect of the intellectual and cultural improvement of the university population. The need for a University Orientation as briefly des cribed here is unavoidable in understanding the essence of higher education for lalipinos. But it has not been realized, much less observed, in this country for several reasons: one is the obvious failure of those who estab lish and administer univer sities in this country to iden tify and distinguish the es sential nature a university from that of a secondary school or a vocational or technical school. This fail ure arises from several causes. One of them is the absence of a tradition of devotion to intellectual work and ex cellence. A professional edu cation which is really voca tional in nature and purpose, commonly understood by ma ny of our people as higher education, is really deficient in intellectual depth, breadth, and intensity. Law and me dicine, for example, which were known in highly deve loped countries as the learn ed professions, are pursued in our schools more as voca tional occupations calling for skills in action, manipula tion, and outward observa tion rather than for inten sive mental concentration and scientific or cerebral ac tivity. February 1969 27

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25+

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