UP Open University celebrates 14th foundation day
“What makes UPOU’s courses and programs cutting-edge is their curricular and pedagogical goals of providing relevant and high-quality education while encouraging the greatest participation from individuals and communities in the country and the world… and this is why we say that the rest of the Philippine higher education system has much to benefit from UPOU,” said UP President Emerlinda R. Roman during the opening of UPOU’s 14th anniversary celebration.
The 3-day anniversary celebration with the theme “Building Global Learning Communities” kicked-off on 25 February 2009 at the UPOU Headquarters in Los Banos, Laguna. The highlights of which are the laying of the time-capsule on the site where the UPOU Centennial Center for Digital Learning is being constructed and the launching of the newly built Oblation Hall and Centennial Plaza.
UPOU Chancellor, Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, announced that the Centennial Center for Digital Learning “is envisioned to house a center that will spearhead research in emerging educational design and emerging technologies for teaching and learning, and shall likewise be a training center for everyone who would need to retool themselves in open and distance learning.”
The university also signed new academic and capability-building partnerships with various international and national institutions. The new partners include Ayala Technology Business Incubators; Colombo Plan Staff College; Cong. Wilfrido Mark Enverga; Cong. Egay San Luis; Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development, Inc.; Herbert Constantine Bautista; InWEnt-Capacity Building International, Germany; National Educator’s Academy of the Philippines; Open University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Still Mountain Institute Tai Chi Kung Center, Inc.; and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. Chancellor Alfonso said that these institutions “are helping UPOU build global learning communities.”
The UPOU is the fifth constituent university of the University of the Philippines System. It offers degree programs and courses through open and distance learning. Its students come from 46 countries.
date posted: March 3, 2009