THE Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and several higher education institutions (HEIs) in Central Luzon have committed to ensure that education continues amid the pandemic as these provide aid to students. In a news conference, CHEd Chairman J. Prospero de Vera 3rd said HEIs are making ends meet to lessen the burden among students, especially with the additional cost of gadgets and internet usage for online learning. 'Different universities have different interventions, depending on the availability of [its] resources. Some state universities and colleges (SUCs) bought laptops for [its] teachers and tablets for [its students],' de Vera noted. He assured that the Boards of Regents of the SUCs signaled willingness to respond to the needs and concerns of the students as long as these were brought to the attention of the school administrators. 'In our situation, dialogue is important. The openness and willingness to find out what the problem is is important. I think the most important [factor] is that student regents represented in the board should speak out and tell the board what the concerns of the students are [in order that] these can be acted upon,' de Vera said. Don Honorio Ventura State University President Enrique Baking said they were responding quickly to all the concerns of the students during the pandemic, especially that many of them were poor. He added that they already obtained authority from the Department of Budget and Management to use the P500,000 given to them by the office of Sen. Joel Villanueva for procurement of tablets for their students as part of the aid. Baking said they were utilizing the university's savings to provide internet assistance to their indigent students. He added that aside from financial support, the university has also provided online student counseling and telemedicine for depressed students since May 2020.
