UB Interim President Accesses Online Learning Success

Pre-pandemic, only ten percent of the University’s courses were online. Today, the University operates its programs almost one hundred percent virtually. The upside is the pandemic has forced the University to build its online capacity which is paving the way for future in online learning at the tertiary institution. But, how have their students taken to the sudden change, and are they performing as well?

Vincent Palacio

Vincent Palacio, Interim President, UB

“We are looking an analysis of this indeed, because it is important that we know how the students are performing. But, it seems like it is the same. Students, the failure pass rate are the same on the online platform as it is face to face, so no sort of changes at this point.”

Paul Lopez

“Any sort of challenges that they have been reporting when it comes to being online?”

Vincent Palacio

“Of course, it comes with its challenges. One being some students not having access to proper equipment, some students having to attend class on a phone rather than a laptop or a tablet where you could see a bigger screen and look at power point presentations better. Some students cannot afford that. Some students still cannot afford the internet to have access to some of the classes. So, they would have to go to places where they would have wifi access to go to class. So, those are some of the issues we have. We still cannot mandate, or make it mandatory that students use their cameras in classes because some students cannot afford the proper bandwidth to use a camera in class. So, when this happens, sometimes you are not in touch with the students, you are not seeing them when you are doing the synchronous sessions, the live sessions. And, some students may sign in and leave, and come back and sign out. Sometimes practically, they are not in class. So, when you call on them, they are not responding. So, these are some of the issues we face online. But, we are working on that.”