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| Choosing who deserves this more than others requires a more critical process than the usual. |
Should a financially capable student receive a scholarship?
This is a question that should always be the subject of debates. When we think of the term scholarship, we consider it as an award of financial aid for a student to continue his education. Theoretically, a scholarship is ideal to the students whose families have no ability to sustainably finance the stay of their children in their respective colleges and universities. If the child is smart and able, he or she deserves and should receive the scholarship from the school he or she is applying for.
However, this is not often the case, especially in a lot of prestigious colleges and universities around the world. These institutitons typically award the scholarships to students based on merit, which means these students have performed and excelled at their respective primary and secondary schools and the entrance examinations better than the rest of the field. The problem is a significant percentage of these students are rich.
When you think about it, rich kids have more financial resources to develop their skills and improve their abilities than their not-as-rich counterparts. These rich kids will tend to study in more prestigious and advanced schools, which give them more opportunities to enhance their talents, such as using better facilities, materials, and equipment, interacting with fellow students of similar conditions, heading recognized organizations, and participating in more interschool, intercity, and national contests and training camps. Chances are these kids will have better academic and extracurricular records coming from institutions that the colleges and universities will prefer to maintain and boost their prestige. Despite not-as-rich students being more naturally academically gifted, for example, they do not have as much as “experience” and come from schools as prestigious as that of the richer kids, and so more rich kids earn scholarships than poor students.
Now, say a financially capable student vies for an available scholarship during his sophomore year against more deserving ones. This student and his family can manipulate their documents in a way that it gives them a higher chance of their child “earning” the scholarship. For example, they can transfer the deed of their house to a close relative, although obviously they still live in the house they really own. As such, it will not be reflected in the documents that they have their own house. Such a practice is not really banned and maybe a bit extreme, but it resembles just how corruption takes place. And to think the kid could be exposed early to this habit …
I consider the awarding of scholarships in this manner to be unfair and potentially damaging to the well-being of the nation, and maybe the world.
First, such practice slightly contributes to the poor quality of education in the Philippines. It’s pretty much straightforward: fewer opportunities for the poor to study in quality tertiary schools, fewer opportunities for the majority of students to truly learn efficiently, poorer overall performance.
Second, the country may suffer from a smaller field of highly skilled professionals. Again, it is easily understandable: ceteris paribus, less scholarships for poor students, less opportunities for them to excel and specialize in whatever field they choose (since richer kids, if they really want to be good, will be good professionals because they have more financial resources), more people that will leave overseas to serve as servants of foreigners, and therefore fewer professionals in the nation that will actually serve the people of the nation as doctors, lawyers, and ironically, educators.
Third, as a result of the first two effects, the gap between the elite class and the poor class can widen at a rate faster than you can say your prayers in times of trouble. More educated students will most likely succeed with their education and wealth, and their share of influence in the long-term when they become the leaders of the nation will be higher than the current level. Most of the more talented lower-class citizens, however, will most likely remain on low-profile careers that may be both non-contributing to the well-being of the country and the good of their selves due to a lack of connections and influence. More of these people will be misplaced in their jobs, making the lack of people in professions crucial to the development of the country worse, such as teachers, doctors, and engineers. In other words, the current problems in the nation may become even bigger than the situation right now.
You might be thinking, I am just hyper-exaggerating (if such a word exists) the current trend of giving a significant portion of the scholarships to the financially capable kids. None of these effects can possibly happen given the seemingly small, no-big-deal problem in comparison to even bigger problems the Philippines is facing, such as the usual corruption in the government, widespread poverty, and the lack of academic materials and personnel to hone the minds of the future leaders of the state.
These statements may be true and these far-reaching effects may really not be affected at all by the rich-kid-gets-scholarship issue. But keep in mind that these scenarios are very likely to take place, if not already taking place at the moment. It is not bad to remember that being lucky is better than being just better. Remember that a lot of the significant events that took place in history, those that led to the rise of the greats and the establishment of powers happened with its catalysts being at the right place at the right time. For instance, will the current President even be elected had his mother not died just before the campaign began? Had winter not come, would the Soviets have survived Operation Barbarossa? Who knows, maybe the nation’s future great and more capable leaders are actually lurking in the shadows and all they need for their skills to be developed optimally in the top schools in the country is a scholarship.
At the end of the day, it is still up to the colleges and universities as to who will be given the scholarships, whether it is based on merit, financial aid, athletic ability, or any other specific skill or field of interest. But for every school billboard that proclaims the “top 200 freshmen who have performed better than the rest of the field” as automatic scholars, perhaps they should start being more logical and considerate of the current events that take place in the world of education outside their institutions.
Life is unfair. The scholarship selection should not be.
This is a question that should always be the subject of debates. When we think of the term scholarship, we consider it as an award of financial aid for a student to continue his education. Theoretically, a scholarship is ideal to the students whose families have no ability to sustainably finance the stay of their children in their respective colleges and universities. If the child is smart and able, he or she deserves and should receive the scholarship from the school he or she is applying for.
However, this is not often the case, especially in a lot of prestigious colleges and universities around the world. These institutitons typically award the scholarships to students based on merit, which means these students have performed and excelled at their respective primary and secondary schools and the entrance examinations better than the rest of the field. The problem is a significant percentage of these students are rich.
When you think about it, rich kids have more financial resources to develop their skills and improve their abilities than their not-as-rich counterparts. These rich kids will tend to study in more prestigious and advanced schools, which give them more opportunities to enhance their talents, such as using better facilities, materials, and equipment, interacting with fellow students of similar conditions, heading recognized organizations, and participating in more interschool, intercity, and national contests and training camps. Chances are these kids will have better academic and extracurricular records coming from institutions that the colleges and universities will prefer to maintain and boost their prestige. Despite not-as-rich students being more naturally academically gifted, for example, they do not have as much as “experience” and come from schools as prestigious as that of the richer kids, and so more rich kids earn scholarships than poor students.
Now, say a financially capable student vies for an available scholarship during his sophomore year against more deserving ones. This student and his family can manipulate their documents in a way that it gives them a higher chance of their child “earning” the scholarship. For example, they can transfer the deed of their house to a close relative, although obviously they still live in the house they really own. As such, it will not be reflected in the documents that they have their own house. Such a practice is not really banned and maybe a bit extreme, but it resembles just how corruption takes place. And to think the kid could be exposed early to this habit …
I consider the awarding of scholarships in this manner to be unfair and potentially damaging to the well-being of the nation, and maybe the world.
First, such practice slightly contributes to the poor quality of education in the Philippines. It’s pretty much straightforward: fewer opportunities for the poor to study in quality tertiary schools, fewer opportunities for the majority of students to truly learn efficiently, poorer overall performance.
Second, the country may suffer from a smaller field of highly skilled professionals. Again, it is easily understandable: ceteris paribus, less scholarships for poor students, less opportunities for them to excel and specialize in whatever field they choose (since richer kids, if they really want to be good, will be good professionals because they have more financial resources), more people that will leave overseas to serve as servants of foreigners, and therefore fewer professionals in the nation that will actually serve the people of the nation as doctors, lawyers, and ironically, educators.
Third, as a result of the first two effects, the gap between the elite class and the poor class can widen at a rate faster than you can say your prayers in times of trouble. More educated students will most likely succeed with their education and wealth, and their share of influence in the long-term when they become the leaders of the nation will be higher than the current level. Most of the more talented lower-class citizens, however, will most likely remain on low-profile careers that may be both non-contributing to the well-being of the country and the good of their selves due to a lack of connections and influence. More of these people will be misplaced in their jobs, making the lack of people in professions crucial to the development of the country worse, such as teachers, doctors, and engineers. In other words, the current problems in the nation may become even bigger than the situation right now.
You might be thinking, I am just hyper-exaggerating (if such a word exists) the current trend of giving a significant portion of the scholarships to the financially capable kids. None of these effects can possibly happen given the seemingly small, no-big-deal problem in comparison to even bigger problems the Philippines is facing, such as the usual corruption in the government, widespread poverty, and the lack of academic materials and personnel to hone the minds of the future leaders of the state.
These statements may be true and these far-reaching effects may really not be affected at all by the rich-kid-gets-scholarship issue. But keep in mind that these scenarios are very likely to take place, if not already taking place at the moment. It is not bad to remember that being lucky is better than being just better. Remember that a lot of the significant events that took place in history, those that led to the rise of the greats and the establishment of powers happened with its catalysts being at the right place at the right time. For instance, will the current President even be elected had his mother not died just before the campaign began? Had winter not come, would the Soviets have survived Operation Barbarossa? Who knows, maybe the nation’s future great and more capable leaders are actually lurking in the shadows and all they need for their skills to be developed optimally in the top schools in the country is a scholarship.
At the end of the day, it is still up to the colleges and universities as to who will be given the scholarships, whether it is based on merit, financial aid, athletic ability, or any other specific skill or field of interest. But for every school billboard that proclaims the “top 200 freshmen who have performed better than the rest of the field” as automatic scholars, perhaps they should start being more logical and considerate of the current events that take place in the world of education outside their institutions.
Life is unfair. The scholarship selection should not be.
