By Thea Claudette Castañeda
Under Chancellor Dr. Melinda Bandalaria’s nine-year term, UP Open University is recognized as one of the leaders in open distance e-learning, not only in Asia, but also globally.
The nature of UP Open University, or UPOU, is inherently different from the other UP Campuses, given that its platform is mostly– if not fully– online. This provides a big challenge, not only in spearheading the paradigm shift in education, but also in adapting to the ever-changing trends in technology, all while keeping the same quality of education that other UP campuses offer.
Revolutionizing disruption is a direction that Chancellor Bandelaria keeps in mind for UPOU. As technologies are disruptive in nature, such as with the internet in 1994 and with OpenAI today, Chancellor Bandelaria views them as tools to utilize and turn into something advantageous, especially for transforming education.
This means maximizing the affordances of modern ICTs to make available inclusive, accessible learning opportunities. Chancellor Bandelaria adds, “Wherever these learners are, there is an opportunity for quality education provided by UP. Openness and quality education are not mutually exclusive.”
Challenges Faced as a UPOU Chancellor
“As a chancellor, you have to lead, you have to harness all the resources that we [the university] have, which is also limited, so that we can develop new ways of doing things but still aligned with the tradition of the university,” Chancellor Bandalaria said, when asked how the unique qualities of UP Open University affect her role as chancellor.
UPOU was established in 1995, a year after the internet was introduced to the Philippines. The campus incorporates innovation and new technologies into its essence as an Open University, while still preserving the values of Honor and Excellence that the University upholds. UPOU became fully online in 2007, becoming the first open university in Asia to do so.
With that said, friction in perceiving technologies and innovations, is something that innovators like Chancellor Bandelaria deal with on the norm. As she said in the interview: “When you introduce innovations, sa simula, hindi lahat ay may buy-in. You have to convince even your own people.”
Aside from filling the gaps in adopting innovations, UPOU also deals with the negative perception that online learning is an inferior way of learning compared to how other CUs implement education. Chancellor Bandelaria, however, views online education not just as an alternative option, but as a future of online education. “We look at distance e-learning as the way to go for the future. So pinanindigan namin ‘yon.”
Leading the Education Sector During COVID-19 Pandemic
The challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the education sector to shift to online platforms. UPOU had an advantage in that part, already implementing flexi-times and work from home setups while offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) through their online platform, something the university had already been implementing since 2013.
Having initially thought that it would be business as usual, Chancellor Bandelaria retained UPOU’s setup, but later on realized that there are students that are going to be frontliners in the future, as the campus offers health programs. Stakeholders and staff are also facing their own challenges in their own homes, so. Chancellor Bandelaria then positioned UPOU as an education frontliner providing public service during that time. She led the campus in reaching out to volunteers to provide webinars for free, and maximized the existing MOOC to offer training programs for open distance e-learning, also for free.
These initiatives are under UPOU’s #OPENFight Against COVID-19 campaign, all in the name of the public service. Under Chancellor Bandelaria’s term, UPOU helped the academic sector transition to online learning not only in PH, but also in some other parts of Asia.
Legacy and Achievements
Within her nine-year term, Chancellor Bandelaria became president of the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) in 2017-2019, leading mega-open universities size-wise in terms of how things are done. She is also appointed as an ambassador for the International Council for Open and Distance Education Open Educational Resources Advocacy Committee (ICDE OERAC). The ICDE serves as a consultative partner to UNESCO, where Chancellor Bandelaria is also a member of its Open Educational Resources (OER) Dynamic Coalition advisory group, representing Asia. She is also currently elected a member of the executive board in both AAOU and ICDE.
Chancellor Bandelaria noted that these achievements have been memorable during her term because they are also indicators that UPOU is one of the leaders in open distance e-learning. While being able to achieve this status during her term, she also recognized the efforts of the previous chancellors, for paving the way in leading UPOU to where it is today.