GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 28 February) – The usual breaking of pencils after an examination did not happen to about a thousand examinees who took the recent qualifying examinations at the Mindanao State University (MSU) here.
The traditional pencil-breaking practice was meant to ward off bad spells and bring good prospects to examinees, Mherzel Gyn Apusaga, president of the Association of DOST-SEI Scholars (ADS), explained.
But this year, they did not break their pencils, instead, they opted to donate it, Apusaga said.
At least six students who are members of the Apusaga-led ADS, along with the Engineering Students Organization (ESO) and Walking Biologists’ Society (WBS), volunteered to go around and collect the pencils, which will be given to learners of an Indigenous Peoples (IP) school in General Santos City
Apusaga said the volunteers, despite their number, managed to collect around 900 pencils out of an estimated 8,000 examinees of MSU System Admission and Scholarship Examinations (MSU SASE) in General Santos on February 25.
Given annually in all MSU campuses, the SASE is an institutionalized MSU System-wide examination first implemented in 1989. Its basic objective is admission and scholarship evaluation.
The pencils collected will be donated to the Danie-Aligado IP Integrated School, an adopted school of ADS. The school has 130 elementary and high-school students.
The IP school was established in 2018 and currently has around 80 pupils in elementary and the rest are in high school.
Apusaga said they usually visit the school every two months to help in improving the reading skills of the tribal students there.
“Usually nagapa-reading mi ug gahatag og school materials (Usually we have them read books and give them school materials),”she said.
She narrated that at least 200 pencils were gathered for every batch of examinees who finished their tests.
In asking the examinees to donate their pencils instead of breaking it, Apusaga said they offered a free lanyard for every 10 pencils. This encouraged the students to put their pencils to good use instead of breaking them apart as a superstitious beliefs.
“Usually man gud, diba ilabay lang man nila, ang iba gani giputol, sayang kaayo pero at least makahelp pud sila kay elementary man gud ang daghan didto sa learners (They usually throw it away or break them. But by donating, they are helping, especially that many of the learners there are in elementary level),” Apusaga said.
She pointed out that parents of learners in the IP school cannot provide learning materials for them and donations are highly encouraged. (Guia A. Rebollido / MindaNews)