U.P. and Others?

“Digital divide” was a term I was not acquainted with until it was discussed in class. For someone who dreams to be an advocate of the less fortunate, it was a shame to be in the dark about this new rich-versus-poor paradigm. Now that I think about it, digital divide is really not only between rural and urban or between high-income and low-income classes. It is also about technology priority and those with less priority for technology.
A not-so-young lawyer once commented that present law students are quite lucky. We have laptops so that we need not read the cases from the voluminous books and worry about calluses from taking down notes. We have the Lex Libris so that all we need to do is search for the case with a click of a button. And we have the Internet so that we need not travel high and low for researching.
Sadly though, not all law schools are equipped with what we have in Malcolm Hall. Some libraries do not even have enough books for the students to use as references much more a high-tech one to provide access to data.
With the addition of the wi-fi (although still at a limited coverage), the UP College of Law is really something one would be proud of.
Looking at the bigger picture, with only a hundred or so applicants admitted in the college, the remaining aspiring lawyers-to-be are left with no choice but to enter other schools. Luckily, some schools provide adequate resources for the students. But most, especially those in the provinces, do not. Even some known schools in Metro Manila do not provide for enough research materials for the students.
The Internet, although a big help, is also not that accessible for some law students. For the rich law schools, this is not a problem. Most of these students have connections in their own homes or use their laptops to connect while sipping their favorite espresso. A big number still have to rent computers and print or save what they need.
Among the sixty or so law schools in the country, only less than 1/3 have their own websites. Some schools do not have Lex Libris; even some do not have complete volumes of SCRA. For a prestigious course that is known to have high tuition fees, law is really not that far from what is happening in the real world. Digital divide is not just a phenomenon in urban and rural places but among law students as well.
I refuse to blame lack of funds for this lack of technology in these schools. For tuition fees as high as twenty thousand pesos a semester, law schools should give priority to providing their students materials in studying. Like some things in this country, priorities are screwed.