THE UNIVERSITY won an excellence award for its “enriched virtual mode” (EVM) of instruction in the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and Rex Education’s Gawad Edukampyon Awards on Monday.
EVM is UST’s official mode of instruction amid the Covid-19 pandemic, introduced during the first term of Academic Year 2020 to 2021. It employs synchronous and asynchronous learning strategies using the UST Cloud Campus.
UST’s e-learning program has been in place for two decades.
“It does pay to be a few steps ahead,” UST Rector Fr. Richard Ang, O.P. said in his acceptance speech.
“The challenges that beset higher education institutions in the time of the pandemic have created various opportunities to reassess and reinvent teaching and learning modes as well as put in place proper technology to address learner needs effectively and deliver lessons efficiently. This was foremost in our minds even before the pandemic happened,” he added.
Vice Rector for Academic Affairs Prof. Cheryl Peralta said the University’s early adoption of an e-learning program “proved to help Thomasians’ transition to a University-wide shift to online and even offline learning.”
The Philippine Normal University was awarded the same title for its “PNU CHED HiEd Bayanihan.”
The award for flexible and responsive management is given to higher education institutions (HEIs) with “outstanding management responses to ensure continuity of education” amid the pandemic.
CHEd and Rex Education, in partnership with the Philippine Business for Social Progress, launched the Gawad Edukampyon in January 2021 to recognize outstanding initiatives of HEIs during the pandemic. Jamilah B. Angco
