Scholarship applicants at PUP deemed beggars

The suicide of the University of the Philippines student, because of financial constraints, spoke volumes about the priorities of the nation’s leading state university. My daughter now finds herself in a similar situation at another state university, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).

My daughter checked online for her entrance test score and discovered it was not good enough for the course she is so determined to take. She was then advised to apply for a scholarship because scholars could choose to take  any course as long as there were slots available. For more than a week, she endured long lines, heat and hunger to secure a scholarship.

On the day of her scheduled admission, she was told to wait for the interviewer at a certain building. She patiently waited there until she was told by a student assistant to come back the next day to see the interviewer. Again she waited the next morning at the same building and would have waited the whole day had not the same student assistant finally informed her that it was at the “Dean’s Office” where she was supposed to go to choose her course.

When my daughter got to the Dean’s Office, she found out that all slots for her course had been taken. What was so disappointing was she learned that there were still slots available the day she waited at the wrong building. She informed her scholarship officer that she had been misinformed and immediately returned her scholarship requirements. She is now out of options and will settle for another school that offers her a course without a scholarship.

A lot of things are amiss with PUP’s policies. It is obvious scholars are not a priority at PUP since the entrance test and enrollment for regular students are scheduled two weeks ahead of the scholars’. This means the scholars would have to settle for whatever courses still with open slots.

Do the scholarship administrators even care whether their scholars are able to enroll in their course of choice? Is it because scholars are not paying a single centavo to the school? How, for example, could a student assistant misinform a scholarship applicant about something as important as the course interview? Did she not care or was it merely a reflection of administrative incompetence?

I also found out that another scholarship test will be given to a second batch this May even though no such information was stated in the original admission schedule. The rationale? Scholarship hopefuls will be paying P750 even with no assurance that they can enroll in their course of choice since paying students had been enrolled first. I also learned that those who came after their scheduled confirmation date were admitted anyway, contradicting the policy that late confirmations would not be entertained.

All of this shows that at PUP, paying students are the priority and scholars, treated like beggars, can’t be choosy. Before my daughter became its victim, I didn’t want to believe that this state university had a reputation for ineptitude, mayhem and unrest. Now I do, and I know why.

—LEORA P. FERRY,

Sta. Mesa, Manila