Student Announcements
MEMO: FAQs on Meeting the Regulations for Onsite Hours Attendance
| Memo to | : AGSB Community |
| Memo from | : (sgd.) Jowett Cecilio F. Magsaysay, MBA, PhD |
| Dean | |
| Date | : 26 January 2024 |
| Subject | : FAQs on Meeting the Regulations for Onsite Hours Attendance |
| Memo No. AGSB-ACAD-2324-021 |
FAQs from Students on Onsite Required Hours for MBA
This FAQs list has been developed based on initial questions from students regarding the onsite hours required by government regulations. This document aims to clarify the requirements and answer these frequently asked questions. This pertains to the MBA program. For students in the ME and MESEDEV programs, we will issue a separate list of FAQs. For students from the Iloilo campus, we will be sending a separate memo.
Our objective is to meet the regulations, while also allowing some flexibility for students to schedule their class attendance.
There will be a special case for students who are overseas or in remote areas in the Philippines, as both groups may not be able to go onsite, and we would offer you a different path to graduation.
1. What is the new CHED regulation on onsite hours?
Quoting the relevant paragraph from “MEMORANDUM FROM THE OFFICE OF THE REGIONAL DIRECTOR No.: 38 series 2023” which is dated July 23, 2023:
“For private HEls, which have invested their own financial resources for facilities, resources, and training of faculty members for flexible learning, they may deliver 50% of the total number of courses per degree program through appropriate offsite, online, or self-paced flexible learning provisions. The remaining 50% must be conducted onsite.”
In our interpretation in the Ateneo De Manila University, we have simplified the calculation to: “50% of a course must be conducted onsite.”
Note that the counting of 50% is the conduct of a course, not the minimum attendance of a student. The minimum attendance will take into account allowable absences, which is covered in number 6 below.
2. What does “onsite” mean?
The term “onsite” means that the student(s) and a professor must be in the same physical space where the learning is conducted. For AGSB, that physical space would primarily be in any of our campuses. In some cases, it could also be any designated space where we might schedule a learning session, as has happened before in a hotel function room, for example.
3. What would be the typical mix of learning modes for each course?
Each course would typically be a mix of:
· Asynchronous online
· Synchronous online, that is, Zoom sessions
· Synchronous onsite, in Flex mode, where some students are onsite and some are online
There will be a few variations from this mix, for example, some courses are purely synchronous, meaning, alternating between Zoom sessions and onsite sessions in Flex. What they will have in common is that the synchronous onsite sessions comprise at least 50% of total learning hours.
At the course level, you will get a detailed view of the schedule for the synchronous sessions, both online and onsite/Flex.
4. Why are the onsite sessions in Flex mode?
The reason for this is to give students flexibility in attending the onsite sessions without being marked absent. Please see the next question.
5. Is there a minimum attendance requirement for onsite?
Yes. The norm would be 80% of total onsite hours. That would mean maximum allowable absences from onsite classes would be 20%.
Typically a student would be allowed to miss 2 onsite sessions for Standard and Middle Managers and 1 onsite session for Regis.
These onsite sessions would be offered in Flex mode, as explained above, to give students the chance not to miss the topics to be discussed.
6. What If a student would not meet the minimum hours for onsite attendance for a course?
In that case, the student would not fulfill the requirements for completing that course.
7. How many hours would an onsite session be?
Pre-pandemic, a synchronous session would be 3 hours for Standard, MM, and MBA-H, and 4 hours for Regis. As there was no online learning available, these sessions were all onsite.
During the lockdown periods of the pandemic, the synchronous sessions, all online only, where cut in half: 1.5 hours for Standard, MM, and MBA-H, and 2 hours for Regis. The principle we followed then was that online sessions needed to be shorter than onsite sessions to follow the advice on reducing continuous online exposure.
When we start implementing the new schedules to meet the CHED regulations, the onsite sessions would go back to 3 hours for Standard, MM, and MBA-H, and 4 hours for Regis. They would be scheduled every other week. This would be a better payoff for traveling time to and from a campus.
8. What would be the time slots of the onsite classes?
Currently, we schedule classes to start at 6pm for all programs.
For Standard, we have two schedules per evening.
To give students time to reach the campus, considering traffic conditions, these would change to
Standard, MM: Weekdays 6:30 to 9:30 for each session; Saturdays 8:30am to 11:30am
Regis: Weekdays 6:30 to 10:30 for each session; Saturdays 8:00am to 12:00pm and 1:00pm to 5:00pm
MBA-H: Currently four slots on Saturdays: 8:30am-10:00am, 10:30am-12:00pm, 1:30pm-3:00pm and 3:30pm-5:00pm
These would change to two slots on Saturdays: 9:00am-12:00pm, 1:00pm-4:00pm
In the questionnaire, you will see a box for checking Sundays. We will see if there is any demand for those days and if so, could explore offering it.
9. When will AGSB start with the new schedules that include the required onsite hours?
As we did not have access to our physical campuses because of the renovation, we could not start with the new schedules in the first trimester of Standard, MM, and MBA-H, and the first two terms of Regis. So, for this School Year 2023-2024, we are targeting the implementation of the new schedules to start on:
· Third term of Regis, which will start on February 19, 2024
· Third trimester for Standard, MM, and MBA-H, which will start on May 27, 2024
10. My home campus is a Satellite Campus. Would I be able to attend onsite classes?
Yes, for those whose home campus is any of the Satellite Campuses: Clark, Sta. Rosa, or Cebu, we would be opening these campuses, and the learning modes would be similar to those in use in Rockwell.
Iloilo students, please note, we will be issuing a separate memo for you.
11. I am based overseas or in an area in the Philippines remote from any AGSB campus. What are my options?
For students who started online and who are remotely located – overseas or in the Philippines but in a location which would not be accessible to any AGSB campus – you will not be able to continue right away with your program if you cannot meet the onsite hours requirements. However, we would offer a path to finishing your program, which would be in the form on an Online MBA-branded program.
We are preparing this Online MBA program. This would be a new program that would need to be approved by CHED, as CHED categorizes this program as distance education, with its own requirements that a school would need to comply with. As this must go through an approval process, the earliest the online-only programs would start would be in SY 2025-2026. We will continue to update this timeline.
We will be extending the residency period for these students, so that you may continue in the future and graduate.
12. I am not based overseas or in an area in the Philippines remote from any AGSB campus, but I prefer to continue online only and not have to attend onsite. What would be my options?
Your path to graduation would be the same as for overseas or remote students, as described above. It would really benefit you to meet the attendance requirements for onsite, so that you can have a clear path to completing your degree earlier.
13. So, will there be an option to continue in an online-only mode?
No, there will be no such option. As mentioned in number 11 above, that path would be through an Online MBA which we would offer to current students only, until they graduate, We would not be offering this to new students.
14. I will be an incoming student, attending AGSB for the first time. What are my options?
Your first classes will already be in the modes for meeting the new regulations, starting this School Year 2023-2024 on the third trimester of Standard, Middle Managers, and MBA in Health, which will start on May 27, 2024, and the third term of Regis, which will start on February 19, 2024.
15. What will be the next steps?
Each student should answer and submit this questionnaire, so that the School would know the situation and preference of each student and plan accordingly.
Link to the questionnaire: https://forms.gle/LT941QqUSk3xuAzE8
