The suspected suicide of one of U.P.’s(University of the Philippines) students is being
blamed on the school’s tuition policy of “No Late Fees” and many people are
shouting the institution should change it because it puts too much pressure on
students that when they cannot handle it will force them to do something
unthinkable – worst – to take their own life.
In the first look of the policy, we say it is the reason why
this poor student took its life. And as
we could read from the comments of many, they are telling U.P. committed an indirect murder. Well, that is true if we only listen to what
we think, but if people really have the wisdom, U.P.’s policy has nothing to do
with the decision of the student’s ending her life. I will
say it is exactly as what the old saying says, “Barking at the wrong tree” or
pointing a finger at the wrong cause.
I am not saying the U.P. management has no fault at all, but
they lack hindsight on how students react when they are put to pressures.
The student, maybe in the future, will take her life, just
the same, when confronted with more debilitating problems. It just happened that her emotion cannot take
it any longer than this time. In short,
she was not prepared to stand strong in the midst of challenges. The truth is the problem has a more established reasons.
Where a child’s character foundation starts? There’s no question that it is at home. Thus,
the parents could also be blamed for their child’s weakness when faced with
problems like the one she just had. The
schools the child attended since she started learning her ABCs are also partly
blamed for not recognizing the child’s shakiness and made corrections about it
(which I see as a national problem on education) because the department of education is not doing
enough to prepare children to become emotionally strong when they face the
stress of college life and the challenges of life by the time they look for a
job and think of having a family of their own.
Where parents are deficient, the school should be wise
enough to fill up. Suicide is uncalled
for as a response to pressures. During
college, pressures should be a welcome challenges for students and supposed to
solve them answering riddles with their playmates.
In the case of the U.P. policy, the school should have
provided some remedies to overcome it, like offering study now pay later to
students or granting loan to students who can’t afford at the moment, offer part
time paid jobs, etc. It is like
teaching them to solve problem by looking at possibilities. If there are remedies offered and the student
still failed to pay, then there is no choice but for the student to face the
consequence of her action because 90%, I am sure, is irresponsibility on her
part.
