The U.P. Dilemma

 

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.