The disperal of universities

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama XIX (5) May 1967

Year

1967

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

■ “Education in the rural areas is one of few fields Open to pioneering.” THE DISPERSAL OF UNIVERSITIES Our love for education is well-known. Indeed, com pared to other Asian coun tries and in relation to total population, the Philippines has the most number of col lege students. Our state col leges and universities are gra duating this year 6,906 stu dents, while the private col leges and universities are gra duating 56,653 students. The total enrollment this year in state colleges and universities is 48,947, while the total en rollment in private colleges and universities is 383,196. You1 can' readily appreciate from these figures that the passion of our people for edu cation is no mere platitude. In Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as well as in the constitution of La Liga Filipina, Rizal recogniz ed this passion of our people for education. But it was Apolinario Mabini’s mother who became, for all of us, the symbol of this passion. We remember the heroic sa crifices that she gladly assum ed in order to give her son a good education. The exam ple of Mabini’s mother is today almost a national ex perience. In countless ham lets all over the country, there are thousands of mo thers and fathers who have willingly gone into debt or chosen a life of self-denial so that they may be able to send their children to school. At the same time, many young men and women, sustained only by ambition and the fierce desire to improve them selves, have also undergone harrowing ordeals and trials in the pursuit of higher learning. For me, one of the most significant events of the Phil ippine Revolution was the founding and actual opera tion of a university — the University Literaria de Filipinas. This university mov ed several times in its short May 1967 41 life because of the tides of war, but its students and fa culty members were undeter red: classes went on. The Revolutionary government, you remember, was not at all affluent, and yet it did not hesitate to allocate money for a university. Our Revolu tionary leaders never doubted for a moment the value of education — even in a time of war. These examples from our history show our deep love for education. They exem plify the Filipino’s belief that education is a revolu tionary and liberating force. For the poor, education is the surest guarantee of demo cracy. We live in an open society because of education. Our educational system, how ever imperfect it may be, is the bne democratic factor for social mobility in our coun try. The opportunities for education that are open to everybody prevent our eco nomic and social classes from classifying and make possible the movement of people from one class to another. Thus, democracy is meaningful in our country because of edu cation. The dispersal of colleges and universities to the rural areas will give most of our citizens a chance to acquire higher education. The pre sent concentration of colleges and universities in the large centers of population makes the cost of education prohi bitive. Added to this, is the natural fear of parents of sending their children to dis tant and unknown cities where the life and possibly the culture of the people are not, in the parents’ judg ment, suitable for their child ren. These economic and psychological factors often conspire to imprison other wise promising young minds in the narrow confines of our unchanging rural world. The system of dispersal must take into account, how ever, the process of urbaniza tion that is taking place, and will continue to take place, in the traditionally rural sec tions, especially in Mindanao, as a result of industrializa tion. Iligan City, for instance, has for some time now been the focal point of industrial development — because of the Maria Cristina power project and the integrated steel mill — but there is as yet no visible development of its educational facilities. 42 Panorama But even in areas where industry and, commerce are not yet very active, there will soon be an urgent need to establish colleges. The rea son is the high rate of popu lation growth which will ag gravate the pressure on Ma nila and other big city uni versities, and consequently produce a tremendous over flow of applicants for college admission. The need to disperse col leges and universities may be realized sooner than anyone expects because of the inten sive investments that we are making in infrastructure pro jects. These infrastructure projects — roads, bridges, ir rigation systems, power sys tems, communications net works, flood control, and so forth — will bring about in creased agricultural and in dustrial productivity and therefore will induce a mea sure of prosperity in the ru ral areas. With prosperity, new wants will develop and chief among these, undoubt edly will be the desire for higher education. However, I want to make the spread of colleges and universities a cause than an effect of economic and social development. Education quickens the impulse for change: it sets the course that change must take; and finally it also teaches hope when the fulfillment of man’s need for change is imperilled. Education should reinforce individual and collective po wer for meaningful action in our depressed and less dev eloped areas. It should teach a man to think for himself, to be self-reliant, and thus make himself a more useful member of society. In other words, it should increase man’s confidence in himself, in the ability of his hands and mind to fashion new con ditions of living which would realize for himself and so ciety at large a better life in dignity, and freedom. In stead of awaiting the advent of prosperity, education should hasten progress and change. Education in the rural areas is one of the few re maining fields where pio neering is still possible. For this reason, the government is called upon to provide cer tain incentives to those who would establish private schools of acceptable stan dards in remote places. These incentives may be in the form of certain tax privi May 1967 43 leges or credit arrangements to finance the construction of school buildings. We are also at present studying an effective way of dispersing schools of techno logy in regions of unusual agricultural and industrial promise. These schools of technology will not only train the persons needed to dev elop these regions fully, but will be the nuclei of future universities and institutes of science. There are some experts who do not agree with our scheme to disperse state col leges and universities in the rural areas. Their arguments against it are well-meant and therefore we have taken them seriously. They say that at present the government can not .even .support adequately the existing state institutions of higher learning. The bud gets, for example, of the Phil ippine Normal College and the University of the Philip pines, are too meager for these institutions to become major centers of learning. To establish more state col leges and universities at this stage of our development is risky because the government may not be able to sustain them. A university with in sufficient funding easily be comes a mediocre university. Hence, the correct approach, they argue, is for the govern ment to increase the budgets of the existing state colleges and universities so that these institutions may grow and widen their scope. These are cogent arguments but they are founded on a misconception. The miscon ception is that the govern ment is not willing to spend beyond a certain amount for education. I should like to take this opportunity to say that under my administra tion, education will, if neces sary, receive the greatest share of our national budget. The schools, colleges, and universities that the national government established, and will establish, shall get ade quate funding for the effi cient implementation of their academic programs. We can not delay the establishment of institutions of higher learning in our rural areas, because these institutions are catalysts of change and pro gress. Under my administra tion, there will always be enough money for education. What a people can achieve is determined by the level of their skill and knowledge. 44 Panorama Our schools therefore deter mine our capacity for na tional achievement. In the same way, what a province or a region can do — the pro gress it can achieve — de pends on the skills and know ledge available within its compass. The presence of natural resources, however rich and abundant, means little or nothing unless the people have the skill and the knowledge to develop and make use of them. A nation, therefore, is as developed or underdeveloped as the skill and knowledge of the persons comprising it. The University of Minda nao can set the pattern for the provincial and regional universities that we will es tablish in the future. Your experience will guide us in this task.' This is the historic role of your University. An incalculable part of the economic progress we want will depend for its attain ment on the countless other men and women prepared by the schools for specific skills. Even the broad academic knowledge in the arts and humanities will play a tre mendous role, indeed per haps a leading one, for it provides that most important ingredient of progress — the comprehension of man. Man himself, you will agree with me, is the only objective of progress. And this is where education ful fills an important function — to provide man hope against the innumerable pe rils of living. — Speech deli vered by President Ferdinand E. Marcos at the University of Mindanao in Davao City, May 7, 1967. PEACEMAKERS “The Sermon on the Mount says: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ It does not say blessed are the peacelovers. There’s nothing special about a peacelover. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ — those who work for it, by every means, by diplomacy, by the use of force, but especially by their work to build institutions of justice and habits of reliance on law both within nations and between them.” — Henry R. Luce. May 1967 45

pages

41-45

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