EDUCATION AND NEW NORMAL

BY:MUTIARA SESILIA ASTAWA(20061015)

SEMESTERS 3,FACULTY OF NURSING

thank you for the opportunity , which I respect, Unsrit Rector, Mr aprildy ferdinandus ST.,MT

Vice Chancellors 1, Mr dr.don kabo,sst,mt

vice chancellor 2, mem anggela adam se.mm

vice chancellor, Mrjoksan huragana s.kep.mmkes

as well as the deans of faculties and also unsrit lecturers

We give thanks to God Almighty, because only by His favor we can gather here in good
condition.

On this occasion, allow me to give a speech about education and the new normal

THIS “new normal” brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic will
last us a lifetime, hopefully with lessening anxiety, what with the awakened altruism among
individuals and groups and the diligence, vigilance and on-time moves of the government.
Covid-19 has also accelerated amazing improvements and initiatives in technology in the service
of personal needs and society. In fact, more fake news circulating these days have accelerated
technology initiatives. There are now bots to ascertain in real time the validity of what a person
says as in a speech or a report during a conference or in any public forum. “Bot” is short for the
term Chatbot, a software application automated to do certain tasks. Bots run according to
instructions as programmed without a human user needing to start them up. They typically do
repetitive tasks, which they can do much faster than human users could. Thus, when a speaker
expresses something that the speaker refers to as a fact, a bot turns on to comment whether such
is true or not in real time. It would have been interesting to hear what a bot would reveal during
the announcement of a “second wave” of this pandemic.

Challenge to institutions. We have at present 2,300 universities and colleges, public and private,
436 of which are public. Given this new normal, how many private institutions could continue to
operate considering much unevenness in resources, hard and soft technology-wise such as
internet availability and expertise. Private institutions with enough resources stored, adopting a
learning management system (LMS) or expanding its use, may not be much of a problem as with
those institutions with very limited resources struggling to operate due their loss of students.
Institutions able to have both ends meet can depend on available LMS. Philippine academic
institutions have to adopt and use effectively online learning strategies amidst this new normal.

Will we have enough future professionals? Higher education institutions (HEIs) have
responsibility to continue and create programs which meet standards catering to emerging new
normal needs for the various professions. The quality of future graduates and the number we
need in the different professions for human lives to survive and society to function, if unmet,
would critically impact on human lives, on our country’s economic future and on Philippine
society and beyond. Shall we have enough new healthcare professionals, teachers, lawyers,
businessmen, engineers, diplomats, etc.? Attention of the government on the millions of our
students who would be deprived of their education because of this pandemic has been sounded
out by managing director lawyer Joseph Noel Estrada of the Coordinating Council of Private
Educational Associations representing sectarian and non-sectarian private schools. Appealing to
government for assistance on behalf of the private schools, he announced: “Indeed, [the]
education sector is one of the critically affected sectors that’s in urgent need of government
assistance to pump blood into it, otherwise it will die slowly.” Would the state colleges and
universities have enough capacity and innovative programs to absorb the overflow of students
from non-operating private schools — students who will compose the future professionals the
country will need?
Challenges to management. Covid pandemic has various challenges to management. But we
shall walk by the Spirit to guide us. How does management resolve cases of students or
employees catching the coronavirus while on duty? Blended learning has much impact, too, on
academic management. In pre-Covid times, a college or department may seek to innovate and
gain approval to concentrate on massive open online course (MOOC) while the rest of the
programs are on the “old normal.” Offshore universities and some of our own have MOOC
offerings developed for service learning and/or extension services for their civic and/or social
engagement with their catchment communities. But in the new normal, our selected standard
strategy is online course delivery. As Peter F. Drucker says, “The right organizational structure
must be in place to administer the selected strategy… While the right structure does not
guarantee results, the wrong structure aborts results and smothers even the best-directed efforts."

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Management action. As the standard strategy for educational provision, this online format shall
be central to the execution of responsibilities of both its institutional managers, the academic and
academic support officials. The latter include the registrar, guidance counselors, health, library
and student services heads. Administrative planning, procedures/processes should ensure that the
soft and hard resources are available, accessible at the time they are needed and are effectively
used. In executing the new normal of blended learning, schools and universities cannot do less
than to keep to their mission and vision of quality education. Blended learning hopefully would
overcome the uneven accessibility of the internet whilst keeping strictly to the quarantine
personal and social protocols. To meet these shortcomings, institutions can turn to educational
platforms for the provision of teaching and learning whilst keeping to quality education
standards despite this pandemic.

We did not choose this pandemic path. It chose us. But our walking by the Spirit in facing this
pandemic as one nation, undaunted and triumphant, will “stand among the greatest (stories) ever
told.”