Hya Bendana and a timely idea
Last June 12, Fr. Tito Caluag’s “Kapamilya Journeys of Hope” featured the inspiring but disturbing story of Hya Bendana, the daughter of a jeepney driver and an SM saleslady. Inspiring, because despite making do with two hours of sleep, surviving on a pack of crackers, and enduring the thought that her father slept inside his jeepney to save on rent, Hya not only completed her studies but graduated as the 2019 Ateneo class valedictorian. Disturbing, because as she so passionately explained, those who are awed by her remarkable achievement miss the point when they ask, how can other financially-challenged but promising students be the next Hya Bendana?
The more important question is: Why did she have to go through what she did to study at Ateneo? More to the point, why is the education in Ateneo so different from the education provided to other Filipino students?
Bendana was part of the 20 percent of Ateneo’s student population who benefit from annual scholarship support while in college. Alas, as she pointed out, 20 percent is hardly the percentage of our national population that do not have the means to send their children to Ateneo. The passage of Republic Act No. 10931 which is also known as the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, offers an alternative to aspiring Filipino students in similar financial situations. Indeed, since 2017, Filipino students who pursue bachelors’ degrees at state colleges and universities like the University of the Philippines no longer have to pay tuition fees. In addition,
RA 10931 provides for free tuition and school fees in state-run technical-vocational schools.
Yet the aspiration of many students to be admitted to top private universities like Ateneo, La Salle, and UST persists. Which brings us back to Bendana’s questions. Why should there be top universities in the first place? Why can’t all students receive the same quality of education provided by our country’s top universities?
The Arete Ateneo Magisterial Lecture Series seems to point us to a potential solution. Its first recorded lecture was uploaded on YouTube on June 22, 2020 “for the benefit of learners everywhere.” To date, thousands have watched the 60 recorded lectures housed in the Arete Ateneo YouTube channel. Among the most viewed at this time are lectures by highly respected professors such as Fr. Bert Alejo, SJ, Dr. Tonette Palma-Angeles, Dr.
Ambeth Ocampo, Dr. Bobby Guevara, Dr. Gus Rodriguez, Fr. Jett Villarin,SJ, Fr. Roger Champoux, SJ, Fr. Ben Nebres, SJ, and Dr. Manny Dy.
What if the best professors and teachers of all the top universities and colleges of the country were to band together with the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) to produce recorded lectures that reinforce and expand on the standardized curricula for basic education, secondary education, and higher education? Teachers from the 18 regions of the country can then be trained to cascade these lectures to their communities with localized discussions and contextualized assessments.
To start the ball rolling, the DepEd and the CHEd can partner with nongovernment organizations like Philippine Business for Education, Education Foundation of the Philippines, and Teach for the Philippines to gather the top design thinking experts of the country and answer the question: How might we scale the Arete Ateneo Magisterial Lecture Series approach and other such premium online education programs to enrich the curricula for basic, secondary, and higher education? Once a proof of concept is produced through a validated prototype, the DepEd and the CHEd could enlist the support of our legislators to pass a law that would make this solution feasible and sustainable.
Alongside this design thinking initiative, a lessons learned analysis of well-received Philippine educational programs such as “Batibot,” “Hiraya Manawari,” and “Matanglawin” might lead to insights that could ensure the successful execution of this idea.
The French poet Victor Hugo once wrote that “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Could Hya Bendana’s call for change and justice in the education sector be such an idea?
Von Katindoy teaches at Ateneo de Manila University and studies at UP Diliman.
