The Kristel Tejada Sacrifice: Some lessons and “must do’s” While the ultimate reason(s) behind Kristel’s taking her own life has yet to be ascertained, reason and sobriety prevailing, we may yet derive valuable lessons from the sorry incident. Maybe, the issues it generated behoove families, students, educational institutions and politicians and voters to consider important resolve and actions. The first is lesson for families and the home. It is time to recognize and accept that not everything can or should be delegated to the state, the schools or other social institutions. Given its naturally-ordained function, the family remains to be everyone’s best bet for well-being, welfare, protection and enjoyment of care and essential services. As the nearest to the children, the parents are in the best position to detect their children’s struggles and their mental and psycho-social status and needs. They should be able to proactively address such problems and needs before they make life worse for the kids. But real love and caring for the children’s long-term welfare and stability do not mean pampering and giving every want that may demand anytime. At the same time, parents should beware of the ill-effects of over-indulgence, overprotecting and shielding them from every small adverse condition of life. Children should not be deprived of the informal yet powerful honing for valuable social skills and the chances of developing some coping mechanisms in confronting life’s realities so that they may grow up with higher thresholds for pain and frustration. To me this is the measure of most successful parenting and best legacy they can leave behind. Given the first lesson, children and today’s students should develop courage and fortitude. I know that this is still much a function of their upbringing in the home but when they reach age of discernment (for many, this comes earlier than the others) it will be to their best if they accept that life indeed is not a bed of roses. Early discernment (best if aided by parents) enables them to be prepared for life’s worst. With this, they may initiate self-help and self-development that prod them not to overburden their parents. In many other countries, even some affluent families allow or encourage children to work to earn their keep. In the Philippines, it is not uncommon for socially mature children to even volunteer to drop out of school to give way to other siblings to finish their studies. If necessary, they search for work and save or look for their funds for loans so they can continue their studies and pay the loan after finding work. This is plain common sense and we need to stop thinking that this is a violation of human rights. The third productive lesson is for higher education institutions (HEIs). With the growing phenomenon of the “youth in stress” in our time, responsive HEIs need to put in place a proactive and creative psycho-social programs for all students. But more special attention must be directed to the most vulnerable, e.g. the freshmen and sophomores. Take note that “guidance” program need not be solely reliant or anchored on guidance counsellors. HEIs have very few of them and few students come to them anyway. All capable faculty members may be given and systematically trained for guidance counsellor’s tasks. I’m sure it is also done in many other universities but the example of my own European Alma Mater is quite instructive. In that University, each student is assigned a tutor (aka adviser) who is tasked to supervise and guide almost all aspects of students life beside compliance with academic requirements, all sorts of psycho-social (and even financial) problems that may hinder as student’s college work and even decision or necessity of taking part-time work. As a graduate student whose scholarship fund was coming two months late and causing me a lot of stress, I remember running to my tutor who despite his nastiness, could make some miracles. Lastly, now is a “must do” for politicians who make national and local policies and the people who vote for them. It is time to rationalize and harmonize all forms of student financial assistance, e.g. scholarships, study grants (in-aid) and student loans (all called STUFAPs) . First, by rationalization, social justice dictates that those who have the potentials to benefit from higher education but absolutely have the least in life should be given highest priority in the availment of a “MEANS-TESTED STUFAPs. This means those who can afford should pay for their higher education. The call for scrapping the Socialized Tuition Fee may be politically popular and indeed populist enough, but its absence may be economically unsustainable.Hence, it should be expanded and institutionalized in all publicly-funded HEIs. Now, part of harmonization is that in order to optimize and avoid wastefulness of the scarce resource the government can muster for STUFAPs from taxation and other sources, every existing or future scheme under any government instrumentality/agency, yes, including the pork barrel arrangements, should be orchestrated under one policy roof and subject to common standards and objective availment procedures. The national scheme that may be legislated into STUFAP law may be augmented by local governments by following the example initiated by Albay’s creative Governor Joey Salceda. Believing that profitable public investment need not focus on physical but social infrastructures as well, the province put up a practical STUFAP kitty for the deserving students as an expression of investing on the youths of Albay. There is now a worthy pending bill in Congress that will do just that –rationalize and harmonize. It is called Unified Student Financial Assistance for Tertiary Education (UNIFASTE). Let the sacrifice of Kristel be a rallying cry for the people and politicians alike to work fast to pass this most responsive piece of social legislation. nbi: 24 March 2013
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:15:33 +0000
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