Written by: G.A. Illustrated by: Obat and Kidlat
In overseeing the return of face-to-face instruction, the University of Santo Tomas has found itself stymied at every turn. With the exception of the Faculty of Medicine and a handful of other colleges which currently operate comprehensive on-campus classes, the mechanics of implementation of the "limited face-to-face" agenda for other colleges remain ambiguous and limited, as the term suggests. To the university's credit, it has pledged to progressively expand on-site classes to supplement the advancements made thus far; however, reservations about the likelihood of its implementation continue to snowball behind the consensus that the university has erred too closely on the side of caution. As the first semester of A.Y. 2022-2023 has already begun in earnest and some face-to-face classes have since been conducted with great success, the contentious debate between public health and repetitive demands for more on-site instruction has shed light on the university's adamance against readmitting students back into the inner stretches of the campus on a regular basis. The jury is still out on UST’s future in fully transitioning itself out of the mostly online setup in the months to follow, but there is no doubting the scale of students clamoring for more.
But, here is the unsavory truth.
Behind the high attendance numbers for this semester’s inaugural Welcome & Homecoming Walks and the successful start to the limited on-site classes is a university whose doors remain mostly shut. While pandemic restrictions become steadily more lenient and other universities have been accommodating on-site classes in vastly greater capacities than before, our prestigious higher-education institution continues to stay in limbo. The Office of the Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs (OVRAA) declared early this year that the “Enriched Virtual Mode of instruction (EVM) shall remain the default mode. Instruction directed towards learning outcomes or competencies achievable through online learning shall be delivered using UST Cloud Campus,” in a memorandum dated April 29, 2022. Admittedly, the limiting circumstance of the present, that is the pandemic, validates the university’s decision to adhere to calculated vigilance. When entrusted with the tremendous responsibility for the health and safety of thousands of students, the university reserves the right to proceed with caution.
When questioned on his view regarding the faculty’s stance on the limited face-to-face course offerings, a leading faculty member in UST’s Faculty of Engineering, highlighted the meticulous process of getting the green-light for on-site classes. An excerpt from his response reads “We based the courses to be offered on the CHED Memorandum stating what courses are needed to be offered for limited face-to-face classes (CHED CMO No. 19 series of 2021). Together with that, consultative meetings through town hall meetings with students and parents were done in each department to also know the concerns and insights of the stakeholders, and for them to be considered. All aspects were considered by the administration of the Faculty of Engineering in terms of preparation. Every part has been crafted carefully, including the safety considerations during the F2F classes.” From this, all students can be assured that each college in the university has done its best to accommodate as many face-to-face classes as possible while still adhering to the mandates of very strict health protocols.
However, over-fastidiousness with caution has become the predominant reason for the university’s underwhelming compromise of a “plan” to deliver proper face-to-face instruction. As of this writing, the OVRAA stipulates that students may have the option to avail themselves of the EVM Hybrid Mode, which requires only the necessary number of on-site sessions/hours for competencies or intended learning outcomes in a given subject, and its alternative, the EVM Hyflex Mode, which will provide students with the option to participate in (more rigorous) face-to-face sessions or continue to participate online. While the latter appears to be some form of reprieve from purely online classes, this has not materialized as well as expected. For instance, the vast majority of available face-to-face course offerings in the Industrial, Chemical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering departments of the Faculty of Engineering (FOE) are configured only in the EVM Hybrid Mode. Specifically, in-person instruction has been prescribed as a requirement for only the most essential modules of laboratory classes. As the rest of the laboratory modules are currently being carried out online as before, engineering students would be fortunate to tally anything close to five on-campus sessions this entire semester. The current face-to-face course offerings touted to be the first of many positive changes in the university’s means of pedagogy, leave a lot to be desired.
Having established that it would be a disservice to Thomasians to maintain the Enriched Virtual Mode (EVM) as the default means of instruction, the probing question to ask is this: Why is it in our best interest to have more face-to-face classes?
On paper, it appears that all the fundamentals of lecture-based courses have found adequate substitutes in the online system, thus, providing a compelling case to maintain this doctrine. The focal point of this argument is that because students have been supplied with collaborative work platforms (i.e., Google Workspace), sophisticated video conferencing applications, and a highly-organized online course site, it would not be difficult to replicate the conditions of a real-life classroom setting. If the mechanics of conducting lectures, administering tests, and providing consultations remain largely unaltered, then it trivializes the urgency for face-to-face classes. It is also easy to argue in broad strokes that online classes furnish students with practical advantages such as safety from COVID-19 woes, flexibility in schedule due to asynchronous classes, and the “supposed” conducive work setting of one's home, which is completely untrue. In reality, a survey conducted by Baticulon et.al. (2021) on the ability of Philippine medical students to proceed with online classes determined that only 41% deemed themselves fully capable of doing so with the vast majority citing the lack of ergonomically-optimized work areas, frequent exposure to distractions and family conflicts, and the increment in household responsibilities as the main barriers to successful online education. However, even if these obstacles and the logistical roadblocks (e.g. internet connectivity, gadget availability, etc.) that students face were disregarded, we must shed light on the three main pitfalls of having a mostly virtual mode of education.
Firstly, online classes treat students as automatons. Mastery of highly technical fields of expertise such as engineering, architecture, information systems, etc. does not come as easily to students as the general education subjects taught in secondary school (which, ironically, will proceed with full F2F classes ahead of UST). Lecture course subjects like Mechanics, Strength of Materials, and Materials Science, none of which have F2F offerings, demand rigorous consultative exercises to ensure the proper refinement of students’ proficiency and comprehension before proceeding towards subjects of greater complexity. In fact, a survey conducted by the Statista Research Department (2021) on the perceived effectiveness of online learning in Philippine universities determined that 30% of respondents (students) rated its effectiveness between 20-50%, and 29% of students rated it below 20%, and only a mere 14% felt as though it was up to par with on-site classes at 80-100% effectiveness. The problem with a purely virtual mode of education is the attendant presumption that students can sustain a clockwork-pace in acquiring sufficient knowledge over the provided course materials. The convenience of assigning tasks to students (sometimes outside class hours) has prompted instructors to gradually lose their grip on realistic expectations. As a matter of fact, it has become increasingly common to allocate draconian deadlines to already burdensome workloads.
Naturally, the pervasive effects on students’ well-being begin to show through almost immediately. Frequent burnouts, low self-esteem, fatigue, and compromised quality of academic performance have become the universal symptoms of a student in the thick of virtual education. Face-to-face instruction ensures that the pace and conditions of both professors and students are homogeneous, which minimizes the discrepancy in perspectives on what is too much or just right.
Secondly, online classes project innate characteristics. The enriched virtual mode of delivery is a double-edged sword that, when wielded, can reap untold consequences. For the disciplined and precocious Thomasian, the flexibility of its schedule serves as an exercise in a habit to which they are already accustomed. For those less so, the lack of supervision and regimentation will cause them to fall into a slew of bad habits. Excessive cellphone usage, laziness, truancy, and academic dishonesty are just the first in a long line of negative traits that, by many students’ own admission, have been worsened as a consequence of online learning. Without the guiding hand of well-meaning professors, and the (positive) influence of peers to police their moves and uphold their accountability, students become manipulated by the stimulants of comfort and distractions found in virtually every corner of their homes. In a face-to-face academic setting, these distractions are curtailed by virtue of the conducive work setting that the campus provides. These help to reinforce good practices and habits that are representative of grounded Thomasians. Even if problem sets, tests, and study materials were released en masse, the existence of a culture of collective support between blockmates helps to reduce their difficulty in a manner that students who would otherwise confront them alone in an online setup cannot possibly manage.
By the same token, the online system augments the polarity between confident and introverted students. The former is likely to engage in class even more intensively, while the latter would be happy to oblige their courtesy of silence, sometimes a little too well. Although a survey conducted on 529 universities in the Philippines (Baloran et. al, 2021) confirms that low student engagement in online classes may be remedied by improving lesson delivery, communication, and feedback systems, and providing ample online resources for students’ online learning needs, there is simply no way to evaluate and address such arbitrary parameters to meet these quality standards in such a short span of time. The ubiquitous burden of achieving the main course objectives in the online setup does little to give rise to the demands for improvement if adequacy itself is already difficult enough to attain. Face-to-face instruction has the unique ability to bridge the gap between these social characteristics by providing opportunities for engagement that online communication platforms cannot fulfill. Library group study sessions, group meetings, and even lunch dates with friends all contain the intrinsic features of human interaction that a Zoom or Discord Call could never hope to recreate. Its massive technological leaps notwithstanding, online correspondence will remain a subpar alternative for real-life communication.
Thirdly, online classes disregard the value of organizational culture. While this point is driven more by rhetoric than pragmatics, the dispute on transitioning to full face-to-face classes does not just present the usual binary of risk versus safety. Rather, it details a more serious projection of what will become of UST students in the future should they carry on with the enriched virtual mode of classes. By virtue of their prestige, Thomasians may be better placed than students from lesser-known universities, but this advantage is neutralized by the constraints of the online system. Harking back to the point of positive influences, a shared culture of holistic values and practices can only be imprinted sincerely on the hearts and minds of students when they are personally immersed in the engagements that allow such (values and practices) to be seen and experienced. Unfortunately, the online education system divorces itself from the element of humanity. An interactive user interface on a communications platform cannot supplant the friendships and experiences that allow one to develop their capacity for socialization. As much as it is a place of work and daily toil, many people find the soothing atmosphere of the campus and the endearing company of familiar faces a much-deserved break from life. Technical mastery of one’s academic program may be imperative, and in the same vein, somewhat attainable in the virtual setup, but it is not the only thing that propels one to reach out and triumph in their aspirations. If UST is committed to rearing students to a particular standard of proficiency, values, and work ethic, then it would need to espouse the importance of organizational culture.
The university is not in the wrong for taking precautions against the harm of the pandemic, but its good deed will not go unpunished. Its overreaching regard for the safety of students has compromised its role in developing in them the fortitude and qualities befitting a Thomasian. By condensing the university experience to a revolving door of lecture videos, assignments, tests, and projects without any respite found in the splendor of good company, the university is setting itself up for one too many problems to deal with in the future. After all, graduates are more than just a product of the system of academic instruction. They are also extensions of the social climate at their university. If their source of guidance has shown cold feet when standing at a crossroads, then they will take after this misguided temperament for life.
Having sporadic on-site appointments on the campus is not remedy enough for the poor experience of online classes. If anything, it is worth risking the gamble to welcome students in greater numbers and frequency if it means revitalizing their morale and gusto for school. UST is still, in every respect, a revered institution. However, the more it trudges backward on this path of conservatism in the name of safety, the more it will levy on itself the cost of compromising the standard to which its students are held. It should be the university’s foremost goal now to lay out a clear roadmap to reinstate face-to-face instruction on a more rigorous, if not, full scale, because frankly, we’re all the better for it.
