By HERBERT VEGO
IN yesterday’s talk show Reklamo Publiko on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo, host Danny Fajardo (founder and editor-in-chief of Panay News) asked Dr. Teodoro Robles, president of Central Philippine University, whether his school was offering the Journalism course.
“No,” he answered. “We only offer Mass Com.”
Without belaboring what he had in mind, Fajardo candidly told Robles that we at Panay News were having a hard time accepting applicants for reporter because even Journalism graduates could not write news.
Unbelievable? Yes, but it’s true. Some graduates are the kind who write only “pag may time.” This means that they should not have passed the course in the first place; that nothing has changed since the late 1960s when I was a journalism student myself.
In those days, our professor was often reminding our class, “If you can’t even write a simple news, you have no right to be here.” He was exasperated because most of us wrote news stories that “sounded” Greek.
After our graduation, I could not even count on 10 fingers my classmates who had landed a newspaper job.
On the other hand, I don’t have enough fingers to count my lady classmates who have resorted to post-graduate “MD” – “marriage degree,” that is – after failing to get a job.
Conversely, we have active newspaper reporters today who have had no formal education in journalism. They are here because they have the talent and the aptitude.
No wonder I don’t believe that the so-called “K-12” innovation of the Department of Education is the key to post-graduation “excellence.” Hence, imposing mandatory kindergarten and extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable. It would only extend the financial agony of poor parents and delay the entry of the students into the job market.
The only sane “advantage” the K-12 gives as far as the schools are concerned is added income from tuition and other school fees. Not really surprising when one realizes that Education Secretary Armin Luistro used to teach at the elitist Ateneo de Manila.
Have you ever heard of a school that discourages students from taking a particular course on the ground that his heart is not in it? I guess no.
A personal experience I would like to impart occurred in my first year in college. I was enrolled as a Veterinary Medicine student to appease my late father who had attempted to lure me into the course because of the “big demand” for veterinarians.
Fortunately, as soon as he discovered I could not even inject our pig, he asked me to shift to my choice: a four-year course in Journalism. So I “demoted” myself by moving from the prestigious University of the Philippines (UP) here in Iloilo City, to Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU) in congested Manila.
As a parent myself today, I justify my decision with the thought that I would not have become a good vet. Success is what one makes of his gift.
May I cite the moral lesson behind two flashlights? Two men walk the road late in the afternoon. One of them shows an expensive, glittering flashlight while the other keeps quiet, hiding a cheap plastic flashlight in his pocket. When the night falls, the two switch their flashlights on. The rich man’s flashlight fails to light up while the poor man’s cheap flashlight shines brightly. So which of the two flashlights is the successful flashlight? You know the answer.
Our worth lies in our capacity to exploit our God-given ability./PN
