On 6 September 2022, the University of the Philippines Open University spearheaded the first meeting of the Team involved in the Philippine Leg of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Global Advocacy Campaign (GAC) on Open and Flexible Distance Learning (OFDL).
Dr. Melinda dela Peña Bandalaria warmly welcomed the members of the campaign and gave a chance for each of the participants to introduce themselves. Participants of the meeting are universities that responded to the call for volunteers. These include the University of Batangas, John B. Lacson Maritime University, University of Saint La Salle, Agusan del Sur State College of Agriculture and Technology, Kalinga State University, Ifugao State University, Mariano Marcos State University, Silliman University (Silliman Online University Learning), Central Luzon State University, Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University and Cavite State University.
Members of the campaign team were also briefed about what ICDE is and what the global advocacy campaign on OFDL would like to achieve. According to Dr. Bandalaria, the ICDE-GAC-OFDL is a collaboration among ICDE members to promote positive change within OFDL on the international stage. She shared that the campaign was launched internationally in April 2021.
To effectively reach the world, the Regional Task Forces were put in place. These are Asia Task Force Asia, Task Force Oceania, Task Force Latin America, and Task Force Europe. UP Open University is co-chairs with the Asia eUniversity of Malaysia for the ICDE-GAC-OFDL Task Force Asia. UPOU is also the lead in the implementation of the campaign for the Philippines.
For the Philippine Leg of the Campaign, the main goal is to increase the level of OFDL practice among volunteer universities. This will be done by increasing awareness about OFDL, promoting a positive attitude about OFDL, practicing OFDL, and putting in place an institutional policy on OFDL based on the context of the volunteer universities.
The campaign is still open to interested universities until the third week of September 2022. For interested universities, please email [email protected].
Written by Anna Cañas-Llamas
Edited by Myra C. Almodiel
#UPOpenUniversity
