Enroll-now-pay-later program starts at UP

To reach out to students who wish to enroll this June but lack the money, the University of the Philippines-Open University (UPOU) embarked on an enroll-now-pay-later program yesterday.

Dr. Feli Librero, UPOU Chancellor, said the program is part of UPOU’s efforts to provide the public wider access to quality education.

"Our experience is that in many cases, students who’d want to register but do not have the money to do so, are not able to enroll. Because of this, we came up with this emergency assistance fund for our students," he noted.

Under the scheme, UPOU will accept students who want to enroll this June but lack the money for tuition fees.

To jumpstart the "enroll-now-pay-later" program, the UPOU Foundation Inc. (UPOUFI) gave UPOU yesterday a total of P377,500.

According to Quezon City Mayor and UPOUFI chairman Feliciano Belmonte Jr., the foundation has "lined up a wide range of programs" to reached out to more students.

"It’s not really just for government officials who need to upgrade their credentials. It’s really for everybody. Although in the beginning, most of their students were government officials . . . It’s the wave of the future," he added.

UPOU was put up in 1995 to respond to the "growing demands for quality graduate and undergraduate education even in areas that do not have a UP campus."

The university enables students to study on their own time and at their own place and teaches them to be "self-directed and independent."

But unlike in the traditional correspondence education, UPOU students have two way communication with their teachers through "face to face study sessions or tutorial, electronic mail, teleconferencing, video conferencing and online tutorials."

Librero said that UPOU hopes to promote "lifelong learning" through distant education.

He cited the records of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), showing that there are some .5 million youths right now who ought to be in college but are not.

Librero added that a similar number of professionals also want to pursue graduate studies but could not leave their workplace to study in conventional schools.

"But the situation is not hopeless. We have the UPOU that adopts and develops a systems appropriate to distance learners," he maintained. – Sheila Crisostomo