The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is proposing to expand the limited face-to-face learning originally covering only medical courses to include Engineering, Maritime, and Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM).
CHED chairperson Prospero De Vera III said in a virtual briefing that they hope President Rodrigo Duterte would approve their proposal since these courses would need more hands-on experience such as on the job training, to complete their degrees.
“I went back to the IATF and I recommended expanding the limited face-to-face classes to cover Engineering, Maritime and HRM. And the IATF has endorsed the proposal to the President already. So, I hope the President will approve it, so that we can expand the limited face to face classes to more courses that need hands-on experience, they need OJT, they need shipment training for maritime students, so that the students can graduate, complete their degrees, and take the licensure test,” he said.
De Vera also said that some of the bigger universities have started to conduct limited face-to-face classes and had a lower infection rate than outside the universities.
“The infection rate was very, very low. It is less than 1%, it is .03% of the students got infected. All of the students gumaling na, walang namatay,” he said.
De Vera believes that their guidelines are working and thinks that students would slowly return to classrooms in the future.
“So iyon ang maasahan ng ating mga estudyante na iyong mga papayagang unti-unting bumalik sa kanilang classroom,” De Vera said. – Lance Ezekiel Pastores