Despite another year of remote learning, it seems that UP’s old epithet “University of Pila” has stuck around. Instead of seeing long queues sprawling from campus buildings, the “pila” now manifests in the waitlist counter of the Computerized Registration System (CRS).

While the lack of class slots is already a long-standing problem in UP, new policies set to facilitate remote learning have aggravated it. Because university units had implemented relatively smaller class sizes without increasing the faculty population, many students had to vie for fewer class slots during a more difficult enlistment process.

This semester, UP Diliman (UPD) has also opted to hold only one preenlistment round, contrary to having two runs in the past terms. The second round is used by departments to open more classes, especially general education (GE) courses, based on the remaining demand. Unmet demands owing to lack of slots are turned into waitlists which usually contain hundreds of students vying for just a handful of remaining slots.

GEs have high demand as every undergraduate student is required to take all these courses: Arts 1, Eng 13 or Speech 30, Fil 40, Kas 1, Philo 1, Soc Sci 1 or 2, and STS 1 or DRMAPS. This semester, only 10,029 slots were made available for the required GE courses (see sidebar 1), lower than the 14,000-plus students expected to enroll this semester.

Among those who are taking a GE this term is Suzanne, a second-year business administration student. During preenlistment, CRS gave her only six units of major courses, way short of the minimum 12-unit load.

It was not until the night before classes began that she was able to enlist six more units, including STS 1. She had to join waitlists several times, constantly checking her CRS account if a slot had already been granted.

Smaller Class Size

For STS 1, the UP Science and Society Program (SSP) which offers the course had to implement changes, the most significant of which is the reduction of class size, said Rene Rollon, director of the SSP.

A class in the remote learning setup could not accommodate the same number of students as STS 1 used to when its classes were being held in auditoriums which can hold up to a hundred students, Rollon said. 

For this semester, the average class size of an STS 1 section is 43, a significant drop from the pre-pandemic average class size of between 80 and 180 students.

SSP strictly implemented the cap in class size by disallowing the teachers' prerogative to add students in their classes. After preenlistment, offering units use the waitlist feature of the CRS to manually grant classes depending on the remaining class slots.

“Hindi lang isyu sa mga estudyante ang pagbabago ng size ng klase kung ‘di [sa] teachers din,” Rollon said. He added that many STS 1 professors had told him that handling a large class was already difficult during the physical setup, much more so now when classes are held remotely.

Due to the reduction of class size, Rollon concedes that SSP is no longer on track to meet its target of offering STS 1 classes to approximately the number of first-year students, usually around 3,000 students.

Changes in Teaching Load

The Department of English and Comparative Literature (DECL), which offers Eng 13, has also reduced class size since last year to make remote learning more conducive for both students and teachers.

“The drop was initiated by the department itself. Based on our research, the optimal class size for an online class in the humanities is 12,” said Judy Celine Ick, the chairperson of DECL. But considering the high demand for a GE course, Ick said the department agreed to set 15 as the class size. Before the pandemic, a typical Eng 13 class had 27 students.

From around 1,300 during the second semester of academic year 2019-2020, Eng 13 slots were reduced to just under a thousand slots during the first semester of remote learning (see sidebar 2). "Prerogs” were also prohibited in DECL, except in the case of graduating students.

Similarly, DECL faculty members were given the option to take a nine-unit load in a regular semester, instead of the usual 12 units. A reduced load, however, would require them to handle six units during the midyear term, to meet the minimum 24-unit teaching load in an academic year.

The UPD administration last academic year also offered to count course pack preparation as an incentive load credit. The policy allows a teacher to reduce class hours while still meeting the required 24-unit teaching load in an academic year.

 “We adjusted accordingly so as not to overburden faculty,” Ick said, adding that the experience of a nine-unit online semester felt like a 12-unit one.

Insufficient Faculty

As offering units reduced class sizes and faculty were given the option to reduce their load, the number of available class slots was significantly reduced. The number of faculty members, however, remained almost the same.

For SSP, Rollon said that it is difficult to recruit instructors to teach STS 1 since the course incorporates both the natural sciences and humanities. STS 1 teachers, too, are from other colleges, and there is only one resident instructor in SSP, Rollon added.

Ick said that as much as the DECL would like to hire more faculty this year, they are limited by the number of teaching positions available. The department did not hire new faculty in 2020.

“The university needs to request for more [positions] from the [Department of Budget and Management (DBM)] but that's a torturous negotiation in this climate where the university budget is again being slashed,” said Ick. To circumvent this limitation, Ick said they are forced to hire graduate students to serve as teaching fellows or associates, or contractual lecturers.

As of August 2020, UPD has 1,578 faculty members. Lecturers, who are paid on an hourly basis and are renewed annually, now total 825.

A ‘Manifestation of State Neglect’

For Karlo Mongaya, an instructor at the Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas and member of the faculty group Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy-UP (CONTEND UP), the university’s shortage of faculty is a manifestation of the “state’s neglect” of education.

“Matagal na ‘yang usapin,” Mongaya said, referring to the lack of classes. “Ang pinaka puno’t dulo diyan ay kulang ‘yong mga guro. Bakit kulang ‘yan? Dahil ‘yan sa usapin ng budget.”

In its 2022 budget proposal, UP asked for an additional P2.2 billion to create 2,007 new positions, including 400 for faculty. However, the DBM gutted the proposal when it submitted Macalañang’s budget proposal to Congress.

“Kahit palawigin pa natin ang registration o i-postpone ang opening ng semestre, kung ‘di rin naman madadagdagan ang teachers, wala rin, parehas lang ang [bilang ng] slots,” Mongaya said.

In the same vein, per DBM’s staffing summary, UP is set to have the same number of positions for 2022 (see sidebar 3), which Mongaya said is yet another tell-tale sign of the government’s disregard for the education sector.

Calls For Higher State Subsidy

Alongside the UP community’s calls on the government to rechannel funds from the defense sector to education, the university administration, too, must demand higher state subsidy to resolve the “perennial problem” of scarce class slots, among other problems, Mongaya noted, chiding UP President Danilo Concepcion’s “defeatist” view on the looming budget cut.

“Sabay ‘yong paggiit natin ng [mataas na badyet] sa national government at sa UP administration. Kasi, kung malinaw ‘yan sa [UP administration], dapat kahanay siya ng buong UP community sa pag-assert sa national government ... kung ano ‘yong nararapat sa sektor ng edukasyon,” Mongaya said.

For next year’s budget, the DBM has only approved P20.2 billion of the P36.5 billion that UP requested, leaving a possible P16.3-billion shortfall which could jeopardize the university’s proposed programs for 2022.

“Mas maganda sana if the UP administration’s budget [philosophy] will go beyond doon sa mga palpak at misprioritization ng Duterte administration, and think bigger para sa constituencies niya para maresolbahan itong kakulangan ng guro, kakulangan ng slots,” Mongaya added.

Suzanne already got her Form 5—the final step in a grueling enlistment season. But for her, the fight for a class slot does not end.

“More teachers and better budget allocation,” she said, summing up a fix to UP’s long-standing problem with classes. ●