Best for the System

Region III’s imminent implementation of the first Regional Integrated Competition (RIC) warrants commendation for its time-on-task and cost cutting aims. On October 22 to 26, students and teachers in the entire region will lay bare their wisdom in the different learning areas as they try to outwit one another in various competitions set in the RIC. These competitions, which were once held in different months of the year, are merged in a week, in the belief that expenditures for these competitions will be dramatically trimmed down.

This notion is entirely true and its intention is pure. Imagine the amount of money each division will save for the registration and travel costs of the participants. Instead of investing such amount to different fees and expenses that are collected for the operation of the various competitions, it will be more beneficial if large amount of funds, intended for the contests are diverted and endowed to institutional backlogs of each division. With this, not only few “performing” students are being profited but also those who dire need to improve more.

Let’s quickly do the math. In the Regional Schools Press Conference alone, which is usually done for three days, each division or local government in some instances pays for not less than 2,000 pesos for the registration fee of each participant. If a division has an average of 130 participants in both elementary and secondary, as always the case, an amount of 260,000 pesos will be spent. But with the one-day RSPC, only 500 pesos for each participant will be collected and it will only cost each division 65,000 pesos. This amount is only 25 percent of the 260,000-peso registration of each division. The 75 percent or 195, 000-peso savings is good enough to procure 975 armchairs or 650 books and other instructional materials. This will lightly mend the countless backlogs in the school system and this is what the RIC is aspiring to achieve. 

Likewise, since the RIC will make use of the one-week semester break of the students, the time-on-task goal of the region will be intensified wherein no classes are to be disturbed and teachers are to engage in worthwhile activities. Before, when contests are held separately, classes are being suspended just to give way for the preparation and conduct of the contests. At the end, it is the students who suffer from the lost days that they should have consumed for their studies in school instead. Teachers also endure going to schools on Saturdays to pay for the lost days; Saturdays that they should have spent with their families instead.

Truly, RIC is a new reform in the region that only thinks of what is best for the system. While it is strictly to be followed by the officials, teachers, and students in each division, they also expect for its uncompromised implementation. It should retain the spirit of competing, losing, and winning so that each participant will have something to be etched in his memories of experiences. By then, the execution of RIC will fully deserve the acclamation not only for its time-on-task and cost cutting aims but also for making a learner experience to become a winner and a battler.