Graduation day

Yesterday was graduation day in several schools, as people rushed to wrap up business before the Holy Week break.

One of our editors took the day off to attend her only daughter’s graduation in a private school. She told me she had to fork out P2,300 for rental of the toga and the venue for the ceremonies as well as payment for the official graduation picture and a yearbook.

The girl is all of five years old, and has just graduated from kindergarten.

Our editor spent more than another of our copy editors, who paid P1,200 for the sixth grade graduation of her daughter recently in a private Catholic school in Bulacan. The amount was for the yearbook, the copy editor was told.

Graduation has become big business, with children graduating every year, from kiddie school to prep school to kindergarten, complete with yearbook. Toga rental alone can be a lucrative business, at P600 per robe for adults.

Some enterprises are also benefiting downstream, as politicians take advantage of the season. Government auditors should find out how much public funds are being wasted on large billboards, streamers and paint showing local government officials congratulating all their graduating constituents.

Graduation fees are also collected in public schools. In one school in Mangaldan, Pangasinan, grade six pupils paid P350 as graduation fee. Another of our editors, who sent the money to his relatives in Mangaldan, is not sure if the Department of Education (DepEd) is aware of such fees.

Back in the days when Filipinos were not yet celebrating Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents’ Day and Halloween, there seemed to be fewer graduation ceremonies.

University graduation is something families look forward to and save up for, but kindergarten? I progressed from kindergarten to first grade and then from grade six to high school with neither yearbook nor graduation ceremonies. During graduation from my Catholic high school, held in the parish church, we wore our long-sleeved gala uniform, carried a candle, prayed, paid for a yearbook and that was it.

These days I guess students, their parents and teachers alike want to mark every schooling milestone with a special ceremony in a memorable venue. Not everyone can afford to attend those ceremonies, so in some schools, graduates are told that attendance is optional. But if the student will be enrolling in the same school in the coming year, can the reluctant parents say they don’t want to spend for their child’s graduation?

In many impoverished areas, parents cannot even afford the various miscellaneous fees collected from students in public schools. Some parents have told me they suspected that certain fees are imposed by the teachers on their own, with no clearance from DepEd.

The parents said they understood that teachers themselves were underpaid and needed additional income. Then there is the fear that some teachers or school administrators might retaliate against uncooperative students through the grading system.

Those miscellaneous fees are among the biggest reasons for students to drop out of free public schooling as early as third grade. Studies have shown that the country continues to have a high dropout rate in grade school, and many elementary graduates do not proceed to high school.

A 22-year-old mother of two from Bicol told me she dropped out in sixth grade because her family could not afford the fees, including an annual P270 collected in her public school. At 16 she got pregnant; after her second child she underwent tubal ligation. Now she thinks she’s too old to start high school.

Before kindergarten became free and universal, a driver from Cavite with four children told me he and his wife wanted to send their kids to kindergarten for better preparedness for grade school, but they could not afford the minimal P100 fee per semester.

Offering free kindergarten to all is a welcome development, but in reality, public education in this country cannot be absolutely free. Sending a child to school requires money for transportation, snacks, and certain supplies that cannot be provided by the state such as pen and paper, uniforms and shoes.

In some areas where water supply is inadequate, children cannot even meet the requirements for cleanliness and neatness in school. Regular bathing and doing the laundry in such areas can eat into the family’s limited funds.

Some teachers can be insensitive to these problems. In one crowded public high school in Metro Manila, a teacher told her pupils that they stank and needed a regular bath. One of the students told me that even if it was true, the remark was no less offensive, but they had no choice but to put up with the rudeness.

The miscellaneous fees pile up throughout the school year. Graduation season – with the attendant fees – is typically when families of limited means decide that they can no longer continue financing their child’s “free” education.

Graduation season is a time of celebration in many households. But in others, it can be a season of parting and sadness, when the less fortunate decide that education is a luxury they cannot afford.

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Summer, after the fiestas, is typically the time when youths from impoverished rural communities, after deciding that they can no longer afford to continue schooling, go to the cities to find jobs. Lacking education, the girls usually work as household maids; the boys find odd jobs at construction sites or as store helpers.

Some girls end up as sex workers; some boys become part of crime rings, ending up either dead or behind bars.

Few dropouts ever return to school.

Once they start earning, they usually contribute to the family’s meager income. When those contributions start, it becomes difficult to stop the flow of additional funds just to resume schooling.

Graduation season is a time of joy for many families, when children look forward to higher education and a bright future.

For the less fortunate in elementary and high school – and there are still millions in this country – it’s where their formal education ends.