Republic of the Philippines

Bicol University
Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance and Development
Legazpi City bu-jmrigd@bicol-
u.edu.ph
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Try to compare your scholastic standing and challenges today in education as that of Rizal’s
experiences during his time.

Rizal’s experiences in his education were indeed remarkable. He’s such a model student;
smart, talented, had been excelling in academics and extracurricular. No wonder he graduated
with outstanding remarks and awards. Personally, my scholastic standing is too far from Rizal’s, it’s
quite average. I wasn’t a bad student, in my previous studies, I used to be active in extracurricular
as well, had also received few academic awards, and with diligence, I was able to earn fair remarks.
So, that’s the comparison of my scholastic standing with Rizal’s.

In terms of challenges, Rizal faced countless of these. It’s amazing how he could excel in
his studies with the presence of these challenges; constant discrimination because of him being a
Filipino, bigotry, the brutality of Spaniards, and his mother being held in prison. These are the
challenges in Rizal’s time that are incomparable to what I/we experience today. In my/our
education today, financial trouble is one of the major challenges and pandemic brought another
one. It’s not discrimination but when you’re not that well off unlike other students, you would
have a hard time focusing on studies when finances keep troubling you, another is having no
access to educational tools such as gadgets and a good connection is proved to be very
challenging, and studying at home is difficult than I had ever imagined.

However, like what I’ve said above, our challenges today are nothing to Rizal’s, and what I
have realized is that- challenges in education have had been going on for ages already and it just
evolve through time. How we cope is what matters.

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