By JOHN VINCENT B. TORIBIO

Seven students from the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) are currently participating in the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP) – Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Joint Program for Summer Term 2020.

Julianne Marie Albano (BS Tourism), Christian Barruga, (BS Hospitality Management), Andrea Nicole Cabanlit (AB in English Language), Dianne Joy Caluttung (BSHM), Andrei Beaver Fernandez (BS Nursing), Princess Sanata Juan (BSTM), and Maria Aurora Navarro (BSHM) were successfully accepted in the course titled “Striving Global Citizenry Competence in the VUCA World.”

This program is being initiated by the Institute for Innovative Global Education (IIGE) at Kansai University, Japan which promotes COIL. The institute started promoting international education since 2014, and ventured partnering with UMAP in 2019.

Running from July 27 to September 15, the course will discuss about global citizenship involving key contemporary social issues in both international and domestic lenses. 

Here, the students will better understand themes on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as, foreign policy, international affairs, trade and finance, and defense and security. 

Aspects of health and well-being, international approaches to education, and business innovation and development are also to be taken up also. 

This year, UMAP-COIL offers a new shape of international education as the course will be conducted purely online for free.  

In joining the program, the MMSU students are expected to develop logical thinking skills, presentation skills, and inter-cultural understanding skills, while collaboratively learning with multi-cultural students. 

While the seven students will fully avail of the learning in the program, other 33 MMSU students are given opportunity to attend the lectures in the program. (StratCom)