AMERICAN inventor Thomas Edison said, “There is far more opportunity out there than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.” But what if the preparation focuses only on the results rather than basic principles of justice and fairness?
In June 2017, the University topped the architectural board exams with 184 making the cut out of 221 examinees. Results from the Professional Regulation Commission showed that UST’s passing rate went up to 83.26 percent.
This led the College of Architecture to require fourth-year students to undergo the Architecture Undergraduate Assessment Test (Ausat), a mock board exam with a 70 percent passing rate for each subject. According to Architecture students, the exam has three-takes on six subjects and they need to pass six out of six to accomplish it.
If not, they will not be eligible to take the Research Methods course in Architecture on fifth-year, a prerequisite for their thesis. They will thus be irregulars.
“It honestly felt we were pushovers forced to do whatever they want. ‘Pag ‘di mo napasa, you [cannot] graduate. Only UST Architecture has it,” said a senior student who does not want to be named.
Ausat was supposed to train its students for the board exams. But it seems like it has only become an added burden to the school’s almost burned-out students.
Students said they were not even given any orientation on the exam and many questions were poorly if erroneously phrased and formulated.
On the first and second editions of the mock board exams, only one student passed. This means all those who failed became irregular. When the students and parents expressed outrage, the administration canceled the results.
It seems like the administration dwells too much on the school’s supposed sterling reputation in board exams that it does not take into consideration the capacity of the students to absorb the toll taken on them by impossible demands such as “mock” board exams.
Back in June 2012, the same situation happened when the majority of incoming Architecture seniors also flunked a six-part assessment test that was meant to prepare them for the board exams. The college made adjustments in the spirit of “compassion” and allowed the students to retake the mock exam.
This makes me wonder if it really is the students’ incompetency that leads to such low results or the system. Is Ausat the only measure of student’s capabilities and not UST Architecture’s competence and effectiveness as instructors?
Student competency cannot be measured by exams alone. Competency lies in the students’ abilities and application of principles they have acquired from good instruction and proper example-setting. So do the Architecture administration and faculty provide the correct instruction, training, and example when they force students to take a mock exam whose results however could result in a mockery of truth and travesty of justice?
