Official Statement of the University President on Flexible Learning
More than a year ago, the whole world was shaken by the rapid spread of COVID-19. The pandemic shut down major industries of many countries, including the education sector. We sent you to your hometowns in order to protect you from the disease. For now, it is most unfortunate that we cannot welcome you all back in the semesters to come.
All of us here at Southern Luzon State University understand the difficulties that you, the students, may be experiencing because of the current educational setup. However, the only choice we have at present until we gain herd immunity is to continue with the utilization of available digital infrastructures to further our learnings.
Here at SLSU, we will not compromise the quality of education we provide to our students, our primary and most important clientele. This is the reasoning behind the retrofitting of facilities in preparation for the limited face-to-face classes we will be conducting in the semesters to come for a limited number of programs.
Face-to-face classes cannot be replaced with any other teaching setup, and we acknowledge this fact. However, we want to make sure that our students are protected from the virus, and this is the reason why we cannot ask you to go back to the university premises at this point. It saddens us that we cannot see you physically, but this is the situation we are facing at present.
However, if we will be conducting limited face-to-face classes, we would require from the students, faculty members, non-teaching personnel, and our stakeholders their utmost cooperation and strict adherence to the rules we might put in place so that we can prevent the spread of the virus while learning in-campus. As such, we assure you that the university is gearing towards formulating learning approaches that would address the needs of the students in terms of the quality of education they are getting and the accessibility of learning resources.
We’d also like to think of flexible learning as a pedagogical approach that will allow both students and teachers to benefit from all resources and learning infrastructures that the university can provide, whether this constitutes face-to-face learning alone, distance online learning alone, or a combination of both approaches. This is to reaffirm the statement of CHED Chair J. Prospero “Popoy” De Vera that schools are free to decide on the mode they will be adopting.
Again, we would like to emphasize that our primary thrust is to provide the best for you, our students. Be assured that we will always keep your welfare and needs in mind. We hope to see you all soon!
Article By: Amiel Jansen Demetrial