UPOU Brings Quality Education to Your Doorsteps

Every year there are about 500,000 young Filipinos of college age who are out of school largely because they can't afford the cost of their education. There are about the same number of Filipino professionals in the countryside who wish to pursue advance education but can't leave their jobs or families to go back to school. Too, they don't have enough financial resources to pursue further studies. And then, of course, there are millions of overseas Filipino workers who also dream for furthering their education and gain more skills appropriate to the current work place. Today's work environment requires that we must upgrade our skills and update our stock of knowledge to cope with new and changing job requirements.!

There are countless ways of coping with the continuing education needs of Filipinos. And there are alternative means of delivering quality education to those who wish to further their educational credentials. This is now achievable through distance education.

Distance education is a mode of instructional delivery where the teacher and student may be separated but interact with each other through effective use of information communication technologies (ICT). It is designed to provide education to people who may be unable to attend conventional classroom instruction. It is becoming more popular in the Philippines and other parts of the developing world.

In general, in distance education, it's not necessary for you to attend classes in the classroom. You study independently at your own time and pace. The instructional packages that you study include printed instructional modules, audio and video materials related to the subject, and sometimes online materials. To determine if you're learning what you are expected to learn, you perform specific assignments that are corrected by your tutors.

Distance education, then, refers to the delivery of instruction largely outside of the classroom, using various media and techniques to facilitate self-learning and mediated interaction between teacher and student.

Due to the availability new information and communication technologies, the paradigm for learning has changed. It is shifting away from the traditional notion that knowledge is transferred from the teacher to the student within the confines of the classroom. It used to be that the focus of the teaching-learning process was the teacher and how he teaches. Now, it is shifting to the learner himself and how he learns. We call it learner-centered process. That is, everything about the learning process revolves around the learner himself. The teacher now serves primarily as a facilitator of the learning process.

In the new learning paradigm, learning success is measured by how much you are able to apply your new knowledge to the solution of current problems. The implication here for you as learner is that you must now take full responsibility for your learning. You must take control of your learning. You must learn and upgrade your skills on your own, not on the prodding of someone else.

Under Philippine conditions, earning your academic degree through the distance mode is very practical and cheap. It has been estimated by educators that the total cost of your education is determined by two sets of factors. One set is comprised of issues that are not directly related to your studies, such as board and lodging and the like. The second set is comprised of items directly related to your studies like tuition fees and school supplies. It is said that those indirectly related to your studies comprise about 70% of the total cost of your education. Therefore, through distance education we are largely able to eliminate 70% of the total cost of your education.

In the Philippines, we have a few higher education institutions offering academic degree programs in the distance mode. Perhaps the most popular and prestigious of these is the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU).

The UPOU currently offers the following academic degree programs:

• Associate in Arts (AA)
• Diploma in Agriculture (DA)
• Diploma in Computer Science (DCS)
• Diploma in Mathematics Teaching (DMT)
• Diploma in Research & Development Management (DR&DM)
• Diploma in Science Teaching (DST)
• Diploma/Master in Environment and Natural Resources Management
• Diploma/Master in Language Studies for Teachers
• Diploma/Master in Social Studies Education
• Diploma/Master in Social Work
• Master of Arts in Nursing (MAN)
• Master of Hospital Administration (MHA)
• Master of Public Health (MPH)
• Master of Public Management (MPM)
• Master of Professional Studies in Development Communication (MPS)
• Doctor of Philosophy in Science Education

UPOU is also offering non-formal courses such as the following:

• Personal Entrepreneurial Development
• New Enterprise Planning
• Filipiniana Online (an Internet-based course)
• Information Technology for Health Research

Two priority master's degree programs are scheduled to be offered next year. These are: Master of Science Teaching (MST) and Master of Mathematics Teaching (MMT).

While students in the different programs of UPOU do not attend classroom instruction, they do attend tutorial sessions once a month in the UPOU Learning Centers. At the Learning Centers, the students may choose to discuss with their tutors any problems they have with their instructional modules, or perhaps other issues associated with their course. The Tutors are there to facilitate learning rather than to deliver lectures.

The UPOU is now putting in place its own telecommunications-based information infrastructure to enable its Learning Centers to interconnect with one another. All Learning Centers, by the way, are Internet-connected. We now have started online delivery of courses, as well as online tutorial sessions. Quite frequently also, tutorial sessions are conducted through audio teleconferencing.

Admission to the diploma programs is open to all who have bachelor's degrees. Of course some of the programs are designed for specific professionals. For example, the program on environmental management is designed for environment practitioners such as NGO workers whose academic background may mot be in the natural sciences.

All the master's degree programs have their specific admission requirements, which satisfy the requirements for admission at UP. In general, for you to qualify for admission to any of the master's programs at UPOU, you must have a bachelor's degree related to the program you're applying to and at least a grade point average of 2.00 or better.

The UPOU is open to the possibility that other students from other higher education institutions in the Philippines may cross-enroll in its undergraduate and graduate courses. Those students, naturally, shall remain students of their original institutions and are considered special non-degree students of UPOU. If their universities agree, then they can credit to their programs the courses they take at UPOU. This arrangement is what we call enrichment program. This way, non-UP students can benefit from our courses without transferring to UP.

At the UPOU, you have the opportunity to earn quality academic degree without having to leave your job or home, and not even spend as much as you would if you were to attend conventional classroom instruction in some university campus somewhere.

The UPOU delivers quality education right on your doorsteps. Take advantage of it. Write: The Registrar, UPOU, Los Baños, Laguna. Or e-mail us at: upouoc@laguna.net. Better still, visit our website at: www.upou.org.