Pala-isip

From GMA News: In the wake of a student suicide, tuition has been in the news. GMA News Online produced this graphic to show the wide range of tuition at private and state universities. Courses at private universities start at P30,000 per semester, while in state universities tuition can be as low as P1,000 a semester. Tuition for science courses may be slightly higher than other courses because of their lab fees.

A homeless 13-year-old Filipino won a very prestigious award for his commitment to improving the lives of fellow street kids. Cris "Kesz" Valdez, who lived off a trash dump and slept in an open tomb for the majority of his childhood, was awarded last year's International Children's Peace Prize in The Hague on September 19, receiving $130,000 in prize money. At the age of seven, Kesz Valdez founded "Championing Community Children," a charity that raises funds to hand out necessities to street kids in Cavite City. The Championing Community Children has handed out more than 5,000 gifts, including sandals, clothes, candy and toys, to poor children living in the slums around Manila. Kesz's message to the children of the world; "Our health is our wealth! Being healthy will enable you to play, to think clearly, to get up and go to school and love the people around you in so many ways. To everyone in the world, please remember that every day, 6,000 chil...

I've always been in favor of giving people the opportunity to upgrade their learning. But we all know that sometimes it's not practical to go back to school and sit down for a few hours every day for a couple of month because we have work or families to take care of. Sometimes the distance is also a problem with the traffic in Manila or it's just impractical to leave our homes and go live in another city just to take courses in a University we like. The solution for that is Open University and I just found out that University of the Philippines has an Open University program. The Open University concept allows students to learn from a distance. Students and teachers do not have to be in the same physical classroom to learn and they use a variety of specially designed learning materials like print, video and multimedia. Students and teachers interact with each other using teleconferencing, e-mail and text. UP's Open University offers several undergraduate, post bac...

What's so special about Jeremy Lin? Aside from having an amazing week winning 5 games in a row. He's also the only NBA player right now who has a degree from Harvard. The first Harvard graduate to play in the NBA in 60 years and he's also the only Asian American to play in the NBA in the last 60 years. Here's an interview of Jeremy Lin with CNN.

There's been a lot of confusion, anger and frustration with the Philippines change to the new K to 12 education program that is going to be implemented this year. Currently, the Philippine educational system is based on 10 years of basic education. Six years of elementary and four years of high school. With nursery and kindergarten being optional. According to the Official Gazette The K to 12 program is Kindergarten and 12 years of elementary and secondary (high school). The model that is currently being proposed by DepEd is the K-6-4-2 Model. This model involves Kindergarten, six years of elementary education, four years of junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) and two years of senior high school (Grades 11 to 12). The two years of senior high school intend to provide time for students to consolidate acquired academic skills and competencies. What is Senior High School? 2 years of in-depth specialization for students depending on the occupation/career track they wish to p...

Sex education the Disney way.

Just read this today. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) announced that 300 colleges and universities will increase their tuition fees this school year. The CHED also said that 8 out of 10 high school graduates will not be able to go to college. I've heard from friends that the tuition fee for De La Salle right now is about P100,000 per year for Computer Science. I've also read that UST 4th year Med students pay around P200,000 for their tuition. It seems that education now is really only for the rich. Private elementary and high school runs between P20,000 to P100,000 per year depending on which school you go to. Sure, there's free public schools, but the quality is so bad, you wonder what they teach there. It's really difficult for today's youth to get ahead in life. Companies tend to hire students who graduated from the top schools like UP, De La Salle, Ateneo and UP. But the tuition fees for these are so high, it's almost impossible to ...

Reposted from Portia Carlos' notes on Facebook. ========================== For years now, each time a political situation arises, you can be sure that you'll find ABS-CBN at our house to interview my mom. Sometimes she would even be asked to go to the studio to appear in ANC shows. For these, she would be given a box of doughnuts every now and then as a token. Even so, she would always make an effort to accommodate their requests for interviews. This she does not so she could be seen or heard on TV (she doesn't even fix herself when interviewed! minsan nga naka slippers lang sha), but to give light on political matters. Recently, my mom was asked by the network to analyze the elections from 4:30am to 12noon. When she asked for a TOR (for being asked to render 7.5 hours of work analyzing the elections), a source said that a network staff exclaimed "Sino ba sha? Kung artista nga di nagpapabayad?". Then go ahead and ask an artista to analyze the elections! No offense...

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer . ================== NOW ON LEAVE from his post as station manager of dzMM, the AM radio station of ABS-CBN, Angelo Palmones is making the rounds of the country, talking to civic groups, students, teachers, communities, politicians, scientists, researchers, and anyone who cares to listen, about the need to instill a “consciousness about science and technology” among our people. Palmones is the president and first nominee of the party-list group Agham, the Filipino word for science, which also stands for Alyansa ng mga Grupong Haligi ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Mamamayan Inc. (Alliance of Groups Supporting Science and Technology for the People). Agham, says Palmones, was inspired by the rueful observations of the late Dr. Raymundo Punongbayan who was at the time head of Phivolcs or the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Punongbayan was then in the eye of a political and media maelstrom when he revealed that the Valley Fau...

Check this out. Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, alarmed by the overcrowding in some public elementary schools has ordered classes in those schools reduced to four or five hours. “All schools that claim to lack classrooms shall implement this order,” he said. Lapus said class length for the various grades in the affected schools shall be as follows: For grades 1 and 2, four hours of learning time; grade 3, four and a half hours; and grades 4, 5 and 6, five hours. “To compensate for the reduced number of hours per day, Edukasyong Pantao will be integrated into all learning areas from grades 1 to 6, (while) Sibika at Kultura will be integrated into Filipino from grades 1 to 3,” he said. “Musika, Sining at Edukasyong Pagpapalakas ng Katawan will be integrated into Heograpiya, Kasaysayan at Sibika (Hekasi) in grades 4 to 6,” he said. The order included a sample classroom program, which suggested that English be taught for 90 minutes in grades 1 to 3, and for 60 minutes for grades 4 to 6. ...

Reading " Physics of the Impossible " by Dr. Michio Kaku got me thinking about science. I always loved science. It's usually my best subject in school. I used to dream of being an astronaut or to be an astronomer. Sadly, there wasn't much opportunity for being any of those in the Philippines. Up until my first year in high school, I had dreamed of being an astronomer or even just owning an astronomical telescope. My dream of being an astronomer was dashed when I told my Uncle about it and he told me there was no money in it. That's true in a way, since there is no money to be made in being an astronomer in the Philippines. That plus the fact the chicks dig jocks more than geeks. Anyway, my interest in astronomy waned and got interested in basketball more than planets. They're both round anyway, but with basketball, you get to enjoy it with friends while astronomy is a lonely hobby. That plus the fact that chicks dig basketball players more than geeks. Second y...

Just read from the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the passing grade for grade 6 has now been lowered to 66% from 75%. This was the average passing score in the National Achievement Test (NAT) administered by the Department of Education (DepEd) last year for Grade 6. Officials said that 66% was actually an improvement from the previous year. This is just pathetic. Since students can't pass basic elementary knowledge, they would just lower the passing grade to get more students to get to the next level instead of improving the learning conditions, schools and better teaching methods? Makes sense doesn't it? Let's just lower the standard so that by magic, now the problem is gone! This is the administration we are in, same magic that happened when the DepEd reported a shortage in classrooms and GMA got angry. A few days later, oops! We made the mistake in the calculation, there's not classroom shortage! This is like what they're doing in America with their "No chi...