CLOYD ANTHONY G.

ELNAR, MLCC FEBRUARY 19, 2020

LICENTIATE IN PHILOSOPHY SPECIAL QQ IN PHILO OF EDUCATION
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RISE OF THE RELEVANT SCHOLARS

(A Reflection Paper on Leonardo L. Leonidas’ “Innovation: a new goal of Education”)

I agree with Professor Leonidas’ lambasting of the practice of the “glorification” of the top
10 board passers by the media, educators, administrators, policymakers and others. Although it is
one good sign of educational success, I too doubt that it is neither the best way nor the only way to
determine the best performing scholars. Today, more than ever, there are more criteria for judging
the success of an academic than just merely topping the board examinations. The global political,
scientific, economic and technological landscape has unprecedentedly morphed into a competitive
athletic arena that demands extremely from its competitors. The scale of the demand for proof of
success has gone so high and so wide thereby.

A very good teacher of mine in the Graduate School in UST by the name of Professor
Michael Anthony C. Vasco, Ph.D. commented in our class that it is scandalous for an academic,
especially those who have Masters Degree not to have published even a single professional output
in his lifetime. That hit my head like a ton of bricks. It dawned on my mind the massive importance
of the product of my years of scholarly endeavours.

An Outcome-Based Education (OBE) has to be added to the trend in education. More

emphasis should be given to it. From the very entrance of the student in college he should be well-
oriented to the production of a relevant and innovative output in the prime years of his college
program. At the onset students should be convinced that all their curricular subjects and
extracurricular activities are geared towards the creation of this output. There should always be a
productive goal to look forward to.

More innovative and useful research outputs should be demanded by institutions for
advance education on issues that concern the science of the environment, healthcare and
technology. The highly-alarming consequences of Global Warming for example have caused panic
to many countries. The fluctuating emergence of fatally hybrid microorganisms such as SARS,
Mers-CoV, NCoV 2019 not only panicked the global health but also the international economic
backdrop. In the Philippines, where farming technology is a generation backward in comparison to
other countries like Japan and Singapore, scholars should be able to come up with advance
technology that multiplies and maximizes agricultural productivity. Part of the problem of the “rice
crisis” in the country is largely caused by the primitively low-tech system of farming used by our
farmers versus the unpredictable climate change affecting so much the morale of our farmers. Many
of our Filipino farmers opt to work on something else other than agriculture because of its
degrading compensation to their livelihood.

Output shouts louder than ratings or grades. Board examinations top-notch are useless
unless they are able to be practically productive in the society through the significant outputs that
they contribute. The challenging contemporary time that we exist in needs contemporary means of
living. These means are only possible through innovative progress in the fields of research and
education. Higher Education should be true to its name now and onwards.