By Joseph B.A. Marzan
With loosened restrictions on physical class setups under the new alert level system, the West Visayas State University (WVSU) is aiming to allow more degree programs to hold limited face-to-face classes.
In a press conference at the WVSU Cultural Center Monday, WVSU President Dr. Joselito Villaruz confirmed that they are in the process of preparing requirements to allow undergraduate and graduate college students to return to physical classes.
This, after the national Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) adopted the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) two-phase plan to slowly reopen higher education institutions (HEIs).
Villaruz cited their public orientation on a new CHED-Department of Health Joint Memorandum Circular, which would be released soon, that now encompasses all guidelines in addition to previous circulars.
“We cannot do this haphazardly, we have to prepare all our documents and compliances accurately so that we can be given the necessary go-signal from the CHED Regional Office. We are opening our programs to all our students in the different programs,” Villaruz said.
Given all the preparations, Villaruz said they are hoping to welcome more students by January 2022.
He added that they were already prepared at the university level, citing the creation of a Crisis Management Committee, preparing university guidelines for face-to-face classes, and retrofitting physical facilities.
“We are actually fast-tracking the documentary requirements and the actual visit of the CHED before they can give their approval. We are looking at probably, with all the preparations, we would start probably in the second semester of this academic year, probably in January,” he added.
WVSU already has 2 certificates of authority from CHED for its Medicine program granted in March, and for its Nursing program in October.
Currently, face-to-face set up in these programs is limited to clinical clerkship for Medicine students and laboratory classes for fourth year Nursing students.
Villaruz stated that they may also start rolling out limited face-to-face classes in lower levels for these programs sooner.
He cited his proposed guidelines as chairperson of the CHED’s technical panel for medicine, which had been left without response from the commission as of this writing.
“Because of the new [IATF-MEID] resolution that came out, we may have to start rolling out the limited face-to-face classes without the guidelines yet that have been released, but of course we still follow the minimum public health standards,” he added.
The WVSU also kicked off pediatric vaccinations, inoculations for minor students and faculty, as well as booster shots for medical frontliners from the WVSU Medical Center on Thursday.
Provincial vaccination teams also conducted vaccination at the WVSU Janiuay Campus on Thursday as initiated by the Iloilo provincial government.
Based on WVSU’s COVID vaccination tracker as of Nov 19, among all campuses of the WVSU system (La Paz, Calinog, Janiuay, Lambunao, Pototan, Himamaylan City), 60 percent of students, 90 percent of non-teaching staff, and 85 percent of faculty have been fully vaccinated.
