EDUCATORS ' CONCERN
25 June 2025
By Melany Amante Mabao Maguindanao
Hala oi, daghan jud masuko sa ako ane, Pero, once upon a time, Latin honors marked excellence. They were earned through grit, deep learning, and real mastery. Today, they’ve become checkpoints for performance, stripped of meaning.
We are witnessing a flood of graduates with Latin honors—and while that sounds like progress, it’s time we asked hard questions:
What are we really rewarding?
Today’s students navigate a vastly different academic landscape:
The K–12 system gave them more preparation before college.
Pandemic-era leniency normalized grade inflation and no-fail systems.
AI tools like ChatGPT make it possible to produce polished outputs in seconds—no critical thinking required.Yet we still measure academic excellence using the same outdated metrics, designed for a world without senior high, without automated tools, and without 24/7 access to answers.
But that’s not all. There’s a deeper erosion happening beneath the surface.More and more students now go to school not to learn—but to accumulate grades.They chase the Latin honor, not the knowledge.They plead for grade adjustments—“because I’m running for cum laude.”They pressure teachers, not because they want feedback—but because they want a 1.0.
This is not just unhealthy—it’s dangerous.Because when your self-worth is based on a number on a transcript, the real world will break you. The world doesn’t hand out medals for effort. It demands competence, resilience, creativity, empathy, grit—qualities that a flat CGPA doesn’t measure.
If we, as educators and institutions, continue to reward polished outputs over authentic growth, if we let pressure dictate grades instead of integrity, then we are not preparing students for life. We are setting them up for disillusionment. It’s time to reframe what it means to succeed. It’s time to protect the meaning of honors—and more importantly, the meaning of education itself.
This is not just about grades. This is about the kind of human beings we are sending out into the world.
There are students who genuinely deserve summa cum laude naman. And those are the students who burn their midnight candles, who ask difficult questions, who learn not for the grades—but for the love of growth. They truly exist—and of course, they shine.
Departments do talk about who’s truly excellent. Professors do know who stands out. But even we can’t say for sure who’s better—because everyone is tied at the top. CGPAs, inflated by new policies and AI-driven performance, have erased the gap between effort and output. Pandemic grading softened failure, AI tools polished outputs for students who never wrestled with the process.The K–12 system, combined with a culture of pressure, means everyone’s chasing numbers—often at the cost of real learning. But you know what hurst the most? Students now beg for higher grades—not because they want to grow, but because they’re “running for laude.” They aren’t asking how to improve—they’re asking how to qualify. It’s no longer about the student becoming excellent, but about appearing excellent on paper.
And I am afraidfor the disillusionment that will come when these graduates enter a world that doesn’t care about GPAs, only competence. Afraid that we are rewarding polish over perseverance, convenience over character. This is not an attack on students. This is a call to review the system. Restore the meaning of Latin honors. Reclaim the soul of education.
Because if we don’t, even the truly deserving ones will fade into the noise.
My take:
It sounds as equitable as to buying diploma somewhere along Claro M Recto Avenue in Manila. Not sure what definite institution is that, but it's hard to believe if it's real or a joke. Everything these days seem a joke; from global leadership to health system and war mongerings.
I've noticed each time I compose something there's always AI interference if I wanted it to polish my thoughts instead of me correcting my error. Hell, No! Now I know what you mean.
It's been a debate here among faculties, mentors and educators about the disadvantage of having Al. My friend who teaches in one of Sydney's universities, insisted on employing the conventional method. Going with random knowledge check by pen and paper to measure what the students learned.
I remember my Physics teacher telling "do not come to school with only your Self and Reason, translated in our dialect 'lawas ug katarungan."
Oh dear... that's the downside of technology, I suppose. Maayo man to si Elon kay he possesses an absorbent cotton mental ability to digest everything he reads and learns. With that tool, he was able to transpose that gained and learned, acquired and accumulated knowledge to everything he does today. Alkansi gyud ang gasalig. Look at PBBM. Balo lang ni Miroy.
