Borrowed Symbols, Blurred Meanings: A Commentary on Regalia and Ceremony in Basic Education

This discussion is concerned specifically with basic education ceremonies, not with higher education. Colleges and universities rightly maintain their own long-established academic regalia, ceremonial customs, and degree-conferring traditions. In the context of basic education, particularly in Senior High School, it is worth reflecting on how the adoption of certain symbols and presentation forms commonly associated with higher education may influence the way graduation is expressed as a distinct academic rite.

In many schools today, one can observe a growing preference for added regalia and altered ceremonial forms in basic education—printed stoles or sashes bearing words such as Completer, Graduate, STEM, HUMSS, ABM, or TVL, the use of graduation hoods in some Senior High School ceremonies, and, in some cases, the replacement of the traditional ceremonial scroll diploma with an open diploma placed in a certificate holder. These may appear attractive and formal at first glance, but they raise deeper questions about propriety, symbolism, and the preservation of educational distinctions.

A simple stole or sash is not necessarily objectionable. In Senior High School, a modest stole identifying a learner’s strand may serve a practical and ceremonial purpose. Used with restraint, it can provide identity without diminishing the dignity of the occasion. The problem begins when such accessories become excessive—overloaded with printed words, heavily ornamented, or treated more as decorative costume than as restrained academic symbol. At that point, the ceremony begins to shift away from solemnity and toward spectacle. The rite may still appear impressive, but its symbolic clarity is weakened.

The more troubling development in basic education, however, is the observed use of graduation hoods in some Senior High School ceremonies. This is not generally seen across all levels of basic education, but it has been observed in Senior High School, likely because that level marks the completion of the K to 12 cycle. That impulse is understandable. Senior High School is indeed a significant academic milestone. Yet significance alone does not justify every symbol. The academic hood belongs to a long-established tradition of higher education. It signifies degree-level academic attainment and forms part of the ceremonial dress associated with college and university scholarship. However important Senior High School graduation may be, it remains part of basic education. It is not a college or university degree conferral. When basic education adopts the regalia of higher education too freely, the meaning of the ceremony becomes blurred.

A similar problem appears in the changing use of the diploma in basic education graduation rites. Some schools increasingly prefer the open diploma in a certificate holder because it appears more formal, more readable, and more visually polished. It presents the document clearly and resembles the actual flat form of the diploma itself. Yet this modern preference also creates a symbolic problem. An open diploma in a holder tends to resemble the presentation of ordinary certificates used in recognition programs, trainings, and other school ceremonies. In that form, graduation begins to look visually similar to many other events where open certificates are distributed.

By contrast, the ceremonial scroll diploma has long carried a more distinctive symbolic value. It is not merely an old-fashioned way of holding paper. It is traditionally associated with the uniqueness of graduation itself. More importantly, the scroll diploma is often symbolically paired with the graduation cap, and together these two images have long served as the most recognizable visual emblems of graduation. Invitations, stage decorations, printed programs, souvenirs, and commemorative materials frequently use the cap-and-scroll combination precisely because it instantly signifies academic completion, solemn transition, and ceremonial dignity. This is why the replacement of the scroll with an open certificate-style presentation feels inconsistent. Even when some schools abandon the scroll during the actual rite, they often continue to use it in their graduation imagery. That reveals that the scroll has not lost its symbolic force. On the contrary, it remains one of the strongest cultural signs of graduation.

This inconsistency is telling. If the scroll diploma continues to appear together with the graduation cap in invitations and decorations, then institutions are still acknowledging that it remains the clearest and most meaningful symbol of graduation. Yet when it is removed from the ceremony itself and replaced with an open holder, the rite risks losing part of its unique identity. Graduation in basic education should not be made to resemble either a miniature college commencement or an ordinary certificate-giving event. It should preserve symbols that truthfully reflect its own level, meaning, and dignity.

The underlying issue, then, is not simply one of style. It is one of symbolism. Ceremonies communicate values, and symbols teach people how to understand an occasion. In basic education, especially in Senior High School, the temptation to borrow too much from higher education or to modernize ceremony in ways that weaken traditional distinctions can result in inflated symbolism and blurred meanings. Basic education does not become more honorable by imitating college regalia, nor does graduation become more meaningful by adopting a presentation style that resembles ordinary school recognition rites.

Every educational stage deserves its own fitting ceremonial forms. Basic education ceremonies can be solemn, beautiful, and dignified without borrowing symbols that properly belong elsewhere. Modest stoles or sashes may be tolerated when used sparingly and meaningfully. But graduation hoods in Senior High School should be approached with caution, and the ceremonial scroll diploma should not be discarded lightly. The dignity of a rite lies not in excess, imitation, or novelty, but in propriety and truthful symbolism.In the end, basic education ceremonies should not merely aim to impress; they should aim to mean rightly. They should preserve the distinctions proper to their own level, honor the symbolism that truly belongs to graduation, and resist the temptation to borrow forms that confuse rather than clarify. When basic education borrows too much, it risks losing the very identity its ceremonies are meant to uphold.