PANDEMIC'S JEKYLL AND HYDE EFFECTS ON EDUCATION

 

“Someone who is sometimes good and pleasant and sometimes very rude or bad” is how Britannica Dictionary defines “Jekyll and Hyde.” The term was taken from “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a Robert Louis Stevenson’s story where Dr. Jekyll, a good scientist, created a liquid and after drinking it would turn him into the evil Mr. Hyde.

“Wow! You’re going to graduate a magna cum laude.”

We exclaimed when our daughter Dionne, a graduating college student, told us recently about her grades. I am an academic honor-conscious father because of my early education background: a first honor graduate in elementary and a valedictorian in high school. When I got to college, the pursuit of honors – summa, magna, or cum laude – was the “holy grail” for me, most likely as well, among fellow full scholar freshmen long ago at Mindanao State University (MSU). Such a pursuit was known then on the university campus as a tough nut to crack and one must be tough as nails in pursuing Latin honors, especially in the Engineering department.

LATIN HONORS

It is noteworthy that MSU conferred a summa cum laude honor on the first ever Muslim student in 2013 -- more than five decades after the university was created in 1961. That speaks volumes on the daunting pursuit of Latin honors as easier said than done

To cut this story short, when I got a girlfriend in my sophomore year, I decided to drop my “holy grail” quest for honor like a hot potato. After having called it quits from such elite pursuit, I was still looking on the bright side of my college education, hanging on to this safety net: holding to a not-so-tough weighted average grade of 2.5 thereby maintaining my National State Scholarship until graduation – a fairly dignified feat in college. In the end, in my batch of engineering graduates, only two got Latin honors: a magna and a cum laude respectively.

I’ve held in high esteem those who earnestly had sought after such Latin honors and ultimately came through with flying colors. After college, I was hired by National Steel Corporation together with more than two-dozen batch of Industrial Engineers headhunted from various premier universities in Visayas and Mindanao. At that time, only four school names rang a bell in the corporate job-hunting market: UP, Ateneo, La Salle, and “Others” – the first three being known then as the Philippines’ “Ivy League” schools.

A summa, a magna, and a handful of cum laude graduates made up a slice of that batch dominated by University of San Carlos recruits. Amid the glitz of Latin honors, my fellow MSU graduate cracked a joke: “Would the company recognize my ‘Most Behaved Graduate’ award?” What happened next that year would leave me open-mouthed: the magna cum laude recruit topped the engineering board exam; the summa cum laude recruit, placed second.

Most fresh recruits with Latin honors don’t stay long in their first jobs which shows off the weight of their hotshot attribute -- their Latin honor qualifications. They are in high demand in the competitive labor market like finance, management consulting, or engineering which pays well at entry level with a swarm of applicants for each wanted job. Employers use Latin honors and school transcript of records in shortlisting job applicants. High grades mean intelligence, discipline, and work ethics.

GRADE INFLATION

Randy David in his PD Inquirer column wrote about the recent soaring high grades, “It’s called ‘grade inflation,’ and it is seen as the culprit behind the explosion in the number of students who are graduating with the so-called Latin honors: cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude.” UP Diliman this year, he narrated, conferred 147 summa cum laude, 652 magna cum laude, and 634 cum laude honors (or 38%) of its total 3,796 graduates who completed their bachelor’s degrees in various disciplines.

By the way, MSU-IIT conferred 52 summa cum laude, 689 magna cum laude, and 818 cum laude Latin honors (or 80%) of its 1,937 graduates this year. Interestingly, in 2001, Harvard University awarded 91% of its total graduates an honors degree.

A study of five universities in Turkey analyzes the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on grade inflation in higher education. It involved grades of 152,352 students who attended 2,841 courses conducted by 903 instructors before the pandemic; as well as 149,936 students; on 2,841 courses; by 847 instructors during the pandemic. The results: pandemic inflated grades in higher education. Explanation: The instructors, accustomed to face-to-face settings, after switching to the online method inflated grades to compensate for the unforeseen negative circumstances.

The study revealed that “student performance is “inflated” [through grades] without any improvement […] the pandemic may have seriously increased the grades since the instructors cannot devote time for assessments. It can be said that seniors are discriminated against positively because of their closing graduation if the pandemic affected their situation somehow. Of course, the first and the most plausible explanation for this increase in the grades given is the instructors’ incompetence related to [online] education […] it will not be fair to expect a perfect transition of teaching in virtual and digital environments.”

No doubt, the pandemic is a “blessing in disguise” for students particularly the graduating seniors – a “Jekyll effect” on their graduation.

On the flip side, what is the pandemic’s “Hyde effect” on education? A McKinsey & Company article “Covid-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning” has disclosed this analysis: leaving K-12 students learning on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the school year. Also on the broader health and well-being of students: more than 35% of parents are very concerned about their children’s mental health.

DEPED CORRUPTION

On the local front, the pandemic’s monstrous “Hyde effect” on education is corruption. Excerpts of the Rappler report “Why COA flagged DepEd for P2.4 billion worth of ‘outdated’ laptops’”:

“The Department of Education (DepEd) is under scrutiny after the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged it for buying P2.4 billion worth of ‘pricey’ and ‘outdated’ laptops for teachers. The DepEd bought almost 39,600 laptops with Intel Celeron processors – among the cheapest in the market, the ones used in budget computers – for P58,300 each. The DepEd’s Intel Celeron laptops ended up more expensive than the MacBook Air with the advanced M1 chip, whose price starts at P57,990. Prices of Intel Celeron laptops range only from P15,000 To P20,000.”

This DepEd corruption treads on the heels of the Pharmally scandal template. Just as Pharmally cornered the P10 billion in pandemic deals despite its being a small, newly created firm that lacked funds, track record, and credibility, so too, SCDC cornered the P2.4 billion in computer sales during the pandemic despite its being a construction company.

Both Pharmally and SCDC have thrown a monkey wrench in the pre-qualification screening by the bidding committee.

“The secret to a happiness is a small ego. And a big wallet. Good wine helps, too. But that’s not really a secret, is it?” (Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Head still photo courtesy of Mikhail Nilov of pexelsdotcom