More on diploma mills

Title

Language

English

Year

1952

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

THE CROSS What then is the solution? It is not merely to talk nor to criticixe nor to wave magic wands nor to damn the capitalists. The fact remains that we have very little wealth in the Philippines. We musl increase our wealth. And we con do that only by increasing the productivity of our country which is potentially rich but sadiy underdeveloped and poorly organized. In other words, let us talk less and work more. Then we can salve our big problems. If you have only five mangos, you can't give one mango each to hundred men. The solution, obviously, is to produce 100 mangos. But, someone may ask, “How can we increase productivity?" Here are some specific suggestions: ) Encourage our farmers to have Many of our farmers work only auxiliary crops and home industhree or four months a year in their hands. Nearly all of them hove at least small pieces of land in which they could grow auxiliary crops, raise chickens and pigs, etc. Help them to do so. 2) Increase the number of agricultural and vocational schools. By far, the greater part of our potential wealth today and for decades to come lies in our agriculture. If while they are young, boys and girls acquire interest and the know-how, then fewer of them will rush after whitecollar jobs. 3) Encourage ond use all means, short of dictatorship, to lessen the percentage of young people who are crowding our cities to attain courses that for them will be useless, that will provide them with a diploma which, as vte have said before, is nothing better than a certificate of unemployment. 4) Urge our legislators to improve credit facilities and producers' and marketing cooperatives to help our farmers to produce. With these and other means our national productivity cap increase tremendously. Thus, we will have greater distribution of wealth; and thus, our average individual annual income will also increase. MORE ON DIPLOMA MILLS At the commencement exercises of the FEATI Tech, high school department recently. Speaker Pro-tempore Domingo Veloso cited the following statistics: For the lost seven years we have graduated 54,353 elementary school teachers compared to 6 associates in industrial technology; 6,532 associates in arts to 7 agricultural teachers; 4,000 pre-medic and pre-law graduates to 3 in social administration; 8,070 graduates in commerce, 2,870 MAY, 1952 in low, 2,084 pharmacists and 1,173 dentists to 136 in agriculture and 49 n thp four year course in industrial technology. This situation is like a gigantic parasite sucking the life-blood of the nation. The economic life of our nation is primarily agriculture. Yet in the above figures we see that in the last seven years we hove graduated only seven agricultural teachers and 136 bachelors of agriculture. At the same time we have turned out over 50,000 elementary school teachers and over 2,000 associates or bachelors in law and commerce. Small wonder that our teachers are starving. No one is being taught ro till our fields. Small wonder that our commerce graduates can find no jobs. There is no business, no commerce, because, like silly fools, we ate neglecting the golden soil of our farms. The government and all public-spirited citizens must act, and act SENATOR OSIAS GETS MIXED UP Recently Senator Osias, as chairman of an educational investigating commission, released a blast against private schools. He enumerated many glaring defects. It all seemed very true, except for one slight mistake. He was mixed up in only one word. If he and his Senatorial conferes had substituted the word public schools for private schools, their criticisms would have been all too true. What a comedy! These men, Osias, Pecson, Tafiada, and the other members of the Senate Commission, are government officials, and as such are largely responsible for the disgraceful, badly run, inadequately equipped government public school system. Nevertheless, they have the colossal nerve to excoriate the private schools which, in the overall picture, are doing so much to help the educational situation in the Philippines. We do not imply that all private schools are perfect. In the columns off the CROSS, we have in the post pointed out defects in our private schools. But it is absolutely unjust and unfair for our senate educational commission to violently criticize the private schools while they studiously avoid all mention of the widespread and terrible evils of the public schools for which they as government officials are responsible. “FLORES DE MAYO” AND “SANTACRUZAN” Moy. There is particular charm at the mere mention of that month. It recalls summer's brightest flowers, windy days with the scent of mango

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