THOMASIANS were moderately satisfied with the University’s academic services, according to the results of the annual Student Satisfaction Survey for academic year 2013-2014.
Architecture got a score of 3.06 in last year’s exit survey, followed by the Conservatory of Music with a score of 3.09. This was only slightly higher from their average satisfactory rate of 3.07 since 2012, as cited from a previous report of the Varsitarian.
Joining the two colleges in the bottom five are the Faculty of Arts and Letters (3.10), the College of Commerce (3.14), and the College of Science (3.16). The Graduate School got the highest importance and satisfactory rate after recording scores of 3.77 and 3.50, respectively.
Diana de la Victoria, president of the Architecture Student Council, said the students’ dissatisfaction could have been caused by the subpar quality of facilities and the lack of a clear grading system in their college.
“Beato [Angelico Building] is composed of artists and designers and yet we are surrounded by old and damaged tables, collapsing chairs, elevators that don’t have buttons, broken toilets and sinks,” De la Victoria said. “And there is no specific right and wrong in Architecture because we are talking about designs.”
UST’s Architecture school, along with the College of Architecture of the University of the Philippines, was declared Center of Excellence by the Commission on Higher Education in 2000. It is also the biggest Architecture school in terms of population in the country with 2,158 students, but De la Victoria does not see Architecture’s huge population as a problem despite sharing a building with the College of Fine Arts and Design.
“We are good in terms of quantity. It is the quality that we lack,” she said.
However, Architecture Dean John Joseph Fernandez attributed the students’ dissatisfaction to the difficulty of the course, noting that Architecture is one of the most difficult programs in the University.
“I really don’t think the survey speaks the sentiments. How do you know that what you’ve learned here was not good when you have not even applied it in the real world?” Fernandez said, adding that the survey should be given to students who are about to take or have passed the Architecture board exams.
Fernandez also said the building’s facilities are of low quality because students have become complacent when it comes to taking care of the University’s properties.
Meanwhile, Science Student Council President Dennis Lagman said expensive laboratory fees and equipment caused dissatisfaction among their students.
“In our college, we have lecture and laboratory subjects. Students receive and pay. Most of us find laboratory equipment expensive and shocking at times,” Lagman said.
The satisfaction survey, conducted by the Quality Management Office (formerly Office for Planning and Quality Management), identifies areas for improvement and measures the degree of importance and satisfaction given by the student body to different services in the University.
Before second semester ends, students are asked to rate University services in terms of importance and satisfaction as follows: 4 meaning “very satisfied”; 3, “moderately satisfied”; 2, “somewhat satisfied”; 1 “not satisfied”; and 0, “not observable or not applicable.” R.A. Vergara Jr.
