With the change in academic year, universities and colleges in the country are now gearing for the start of the second semester. At the Negros Oriental State University (NOrSU), the only state-run university in the province, classes start on Monday, February 14.
Unlike some universities in the province that postponed the start of their classes in a week or two because of the damage wrought by Typhoon Odette, not to mention that we are still on Alert Level 3 in this battle against COViD-19, this is the schedule of NOrSU as it appears on its academic calendar.
In an interview we conducted with Dr. Joel P. Limson, NOrSU president, he recalled that in each of the university’s nine satellite campuses, they had their own experiences and stories to tell in this pandemic, most especially on how they have maintained their interaction with their students.
“Take for example our Mabinay campus. It is the farthest, smallest, and the youngest campus of NOrSU. It has the strongest connectivity with 400 mbps compared to the main campus, which is only 250 (as of the day of the interview), and the rest is 150 only. But, even if Mabinay has the strongest connectivity, it is not guaranteed that it could reach all the students because many of them do not have signal or access to connectivity in their barangays or sitios,” shared Dr. Limson.
Despite these constraints, continued Dr. Limson, the teachers spent time delivering modules to the students. “The campus has earned my admiration and respect. In fact, one security guard was found positive of the virus and, consequently, all employees on campus were first generation contacts and were advised to undergo quarantine. Everyone was placed on quarantine right inside the campus,” Dr. Limson enthused.
By far, two years into the pandemic, the hardest challenge for the university was that students had no one to ask for clarifications regarding their lessons. He said he encountered numerous feedback and the students lamented that they are left oftentimes on their own. Although the students can call their teachers any time, it would require them to commute for a few hours just to get a connection.
“We constantly meet with our innovators, especially our deans and faculty members, to dissect what their needs are so that we can be more effective in our delivery. Whether we are into this pandemic or not, I think the trend and our direction is towards online teaching. We have invested so much on the equipment for online classes, so we might as well use these. We have spent so much to get good connectivity. We have great plans like putting up towers in some remote barangays where we have many students. They can go to that place where we have so-called tele-learning centers to avail of good connectivity and do other school activities,” expounded Dr. Limson.
With the Free Higher Education Act, NOrSU has been deluged with a lot of students wanting to avail of this privilege. “Unfortunately, to parents and all stakeholders, we could not accept all your children at NOrSU because we have a particular carrying capacity. We cannot go beyond our carrying capacity because that means we will be sacrificing the quality of our education. We have reported our carrying capacity to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and they can always question us why we have accepted so many students beyond our capacity.
Accepting more students means more faculty members, buying a lot of equipment, having additional rooms, chairs, books which are beyond our budget already. I’d like to tell the parents that we wish to accept your children at NOrSU, but because of our capacity, we cannot accommodate all the students. However, we are trying to be equitable, especially to those who really are in need and worthy of admission to the state university,” Dr. Limson explained.
According to Dr. Limson, students need to undergo entrance exams, especially for certain courses, as well as interviews and to fulfill other requirements before admission. Right now, the university has an enrolment of 25,000, which is more than enough for the university to accommodate.
“That is the capacity. There was a time when we reached 27,000 students and, as expected, some classes were held under the trees or outside of the classrooms. So, how can you give proper learning if the atmosphere is not conducive. We lacked faculty, books, and equipment where, supposedly, the ratio of one equipment is one for every 15 students, but sometimes, it would reach 25. It really affected the learning process,” lamented Dr. Limson. (to be continued) – NWI
