Special Program for Journalism (SPJ) coordinator Richard Brian Tutor stressed that despite of the population depletion of journalism students, the program would still be fine as its target number to reach is only 15 above per grade level.
“For the number of students, 15 students lang naman talaga ang required under the program. Fifteen, as in one five so kumbaga, pasok pa rin naman yung grade 7, nasa 13 sila, pasok pa rin kasi yun lang naman talaga ang nasa guidelines,” the coordinator explained.
For years, the statistics drastically decreased from 2016-2017 tallying 35 grade 7 students to 2019-2020 on 13 per student’s headcount.
Although the numbers would increase per grade level with transferees from pilot and regular sections, the current deflation in grade 7 SPJ pupils might result to a change in curriculum.
According to Mr. Tutor, the main factor of the less students in SPJ is how the grade 7 students fare with their studies. He stated that these pupils don’t apply to the program due to the fact that they are afraid of commitment to both academics and journalism performances.
He also said that the problem rooted from the standards they set up within the program. Even if the student is intelligent, if he or she don’t have the talent, then he can’t join the class.
Luckily, even with these numbers, the coordinator still believe that they can still sustain their rank when it comes to press conferences.
“Actually, feel ko naman, sustained pa rin namandahil yung mga nakukuha naman natin ay same people na talagang ano, maaasahan pa rin o di kaya ay mapapakinabangan pa rin sa school paper,” he concluded.
THE ECHOES 