Professor Justice's Secret Files

Work Immersion 2

During the previous year, the Admin's Wife did a terrible job in ensuring that all students got the learning experience they paid for as far as the work immersion subject is concerned. Only a few sections were deployed. A lot of students graduated with frustrations.

I made sure that things will get better this time.

I am glad that I was allowed to use a letter template to write proposals to companies and other institutions so that we could partner with them for work immersion. Since the coordinator was usually not around, I was allowed to sign in lieu of her. She even asked me to represent the whole school to a meeting with the National Office of the Philippine Red Cross to arrange a work immersion program for our students.

I went to the National Museum, Philippine Senate, Commission on Human Rights (CHR), House of Representatives, ABS-CBN, and others.

As for the National Museum, we were late. They processed requests for a month. Because of the delays the Admin's Wife brought us again, the students would not graduate on time if we would have to wait for a month. With the Philippine Senate, it almost did not push through. The semester was already over when the students started. The work immersion program was already finished before the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the school and the Senate office there was duly signed by the persons from our university. I also had to explain to a senate staff our problem with the Admin's Wife and requested that she would not be given any further reason for delay because, after all, the Senate has been expecting us to start for two months already but the Admin's Wife would delay it for any cause of unreasonable fear on her part.

As to the CHR, it pushed through. However, when we were delivering the students to the office, the Admin's Wife was trying to convince the students not to do any off-campus work immersion. She looked very scared. No student took heed of her advice.

As to the House of Representatives, one office there spent hours drafting the work immersion program. Our students were scheduled to attend hearings and assist in transcribing the deliberations. However, the Admin's Wife decided she would not push through with that. It was weird.

As to ABS-CBN, it pushed through. But we were the only school that did not agree to have our students sent outside the building for taping or other activities. That was because the Admin's Wife was scared that it may not be safe to go outside the building. But the students still needed to go outside if they want to go home. The Memorandum of Agreement was also signed only weeks after the work immersion program ended.

After we were finished assigning students to their work places, one student was missed out. This was why I allowed her to choose which company she wanted. She looked for one. She was employed as an assistant in a dental clinic. She was the only one who received pecuniary allowance among all the students who went through work immersion. The Admin's Wife did not know I allowed this student to choose her own company.

As for the other strands who were not prepared for the incapability of the Admin's Wife, they were surprised when they also failed to deploy their students. Once, their students were about to leave at 5AM the next day for deployment but the teachers would receive an email from the Admin's Wife at 11PM the immediately previous evening telling them not to send their students anymore. They felt demoralized because of the Admin's Wife's decisions. That's how we felt too the year before.

Later, before my resignation became effective, the Admin's Wife was endorsing the work immersion program to potential students. She cited the accomplishments we did that semester. As for our strand, all of the off-campus work immersions were done because of the proposals I sent. I was the one who worked for all of them. She delayed and delayed. But, in that conference, she took all the credit.

It was not my battle to fight. I was about to leave. Everybody in our department knew how much I worked. It was only her who took the credit on stage, but the people knew how I–and other teachers–worked hard for those.