A couple of weeks ago, I heard that only one student had filed a case against a professor for missing class and a few alleged grading issues last term. Apparently, the student’s grade was corrected, but in a surprising upturn of events, the student pushed through with the case.
An average student would normally say, “Yes!” and withdraw the case because he already got the grade he wanted because as one of my professors before saying, “Kaya ka nagrereklamo ay dahil gusto mo ng mas mataas na grade.”
In other words, students file cases because they want higher grades without due and proper justification, which I initially treated as something stupid. It is impossible that all or that most students are really just in it for the grade and do not want to get anything from a subject except a 4.0 to beef up their GPAs.
Then again, the statistics and basic common sense show otherwise. Think about it. How many of us have encountered a professor who would readily give a student a 4.0 for nothing? And how many of us have seen students allow a professor to treat them badly so long as they get a respectable grade? Sometimes, some even let professors give them a passing grade when they know that the professor had no basis in grading them. Even worse, some who should get higher grades tolerate 2.0s and 1.0s from professors who do not believe in giving 4.0s.
These and more have created a culture of acceptance—students take whatever is thrown at them in the guise of academic freedom on part of the professors. This does not, however, mean that all professors are not fair or do not have fair practices. In my five years of stay in DLSU, I have met some of the greatest teachers and mentors I would ever meet in my life, and I am sure that this is true for many of us. These professors use their academic freedom to treat students properly and to teach them more than regular lessons in class.
There are, however, many who have abused their academic freedom. Academic freedom simply means that a professor may grade or teach in any way he sees fit with a guarantee that even the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) cannot dictate the manner in which he or she should teach or grade. The definition alone guarantees one thing: everything lies with the professor. A professor can choose to present movies all the time; he could continue to talk about his life experiences that have nothing to do with the lesson; and he can choose to ask students to just a read the book.
All universities, including DLSU, however, do have ways to control or at least reduce the incidence of the abuse of academic freedom. DLSU currently has a grievance system, which the USG handles. The problem though is that everything lies with the student. A professor could be penalized in two ways. First, students can file a formal or informal grievance against a professor, provided the student follows several procedures that I personally believe was made to delay or to find loopholes (technicalities) to invalidate a case. Second, students can evaluate their professors at the end of the term via the mylasalle system.
What’s interesting though is that the grievance system is riddled with many problems. Most students have to wait for the end of a term to file a complaint on a professor, which means that students would have to endure the characteristic of the professor they have an issue with for an entire term. Moreover, like the government’s justice system, there is no guarantee of fair treatment especially when a professor has a name or is very influential. Justice, however, has been served in the past for both parties. Some professors do actually get faulty and absurd cases from students who “just want a higher grade,” while many students have had justice served in the past.
But why is it that only one case was filed against a professor last term? Does this mean that only one professor, if he even deserved the case, violated a student’s right? Probably not. The few cases filed do not necessarily mean that no violations were committed and no parties have been abused. The perfect example of which is the number of cases filed against politicians in the country or even better, the number of politicians prosecuted in the past decade.
So why do students opt not to file cases? One answer would be their lack of faith in the grievance system, which probably outweighs their faith in themselves and their case. Another would be the process involved. To file a legitimate case against a professor, a student needs to inform the professor first, which makes sense really because everyone has a right to know if he or she has a case. What many students do not know is that a professor need not inform a student that he or she has a case—the DO does that for them. Moreover, professors can get away with some of the technicalities in the system that they should be following.
To sum it up, students lack faith. I for one have experienced an injustice in the system. My professor (law) back then did not teach and asked us to pray the rosary for about 30 minutes per meeting. She did not attend grade consultation and gave everyone uniform grades. It took the University two terms to suspend her, and she was excused from the hearings by none other than her department chair.
The issue here is not the grade that she gave the class. In fact, the real issue behind my problem with the grievance system and the manner students treat grades is that we have grown to value grades as everything. Many students and professors have started to look at grades as the basis of real learning, in Filipino, “Mukha na tayong grades.”
Grades, however, should matter for the right reasons—for growth, learning and the value of hard work.
