[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’CHED halts field trips, educational tours’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY RESEL JOY TIANERO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#0a0a0a’]
Thursday, February 23, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#0a0a0a’]
ILOILO City – The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) suspended all field trips and educational tours of public and private colleges and universities.
CHED Region 6 is complying with the moratorium issued after a bus crash in Tanay, Rizal that killed at least 15 people, mostly students on a field trip, Chief Education Program Specialist Rex Casiple told Panay News yesterday.
Casiple said the commission en banc issued the directive so it can investigate the Monday incident and review current policies on field trips and education tours.
He received their copy of a memorandum on the suspension from Chairperson Patricia Licuanan yesterday.
Casiple said the memo was addressed to “all presidents and officers-in-charge of state universities and colleges, local universities and colleges, and private higher education institutions.”
“In lieu of field trips or external campus activities, [higher education institutions] should institute replacement activities that will serve the purpose intended by such off-campus activities [and] preserve the objectives sought to be achieved,” he said.
The bus was taking around 50 Bestlink College of the Philippines students to a camping trip in Tanay, Rizal. It crashed into an electric post while traveling in Sitio Bayucan, Barangay Sampaloc in the town.
Field trips and educational tours are noncompulsory, Casiple stressed.
“We have alternative requirements for students who cannot join educational tours,” the regional CHED official said. “They are called ‘replacement activities,’ like a seminar, a term paper or reporting.”
Under CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 17, series of 2012, schools must submit to the commission all field trip and educational tour requirements a month before the opening of classes.
“They have to fill out a checklist and provide supporting documents,” Casiple said.
But the memo does not give CHED an authority to approve the activities; the school’s president has the final say, he said. “We must review CMO No. 17, series of 2012 to strengthen the authority of CHED.”
Casiple clarified that the suspension does not cover on-the-job trainings./PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
