The University of the Philippines on Tuesday announced the deferment of its College Admission for 2021.
The University Councils of the eight constituent universities of the UP System, as the highest academic bodies of the CUs, unanimously decided there will be no UPCAT for the intake of first-year students in the academic year 2021-2022.
Based on the Oct. 30 memorandum issued by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the University Councils of the CUs “unanimously voted NOT to administer UPCAT in light of logistical issues in the paper-and-pencil testing of about 100,000 17-year old applicants.”
Taking into account the uncertain trajectory and uneven spread of COVID-19 in different parts of the Philippines, the majority of the UC members did not deem it feasible to administer the usual UPCAT involving around 1,600 testing personnel deployed to 94 testing centers throughout the archipelago, UP said in a statement.
According to the same memorandum, majority of the UC members did not consider an online UPCAT examination feasible either.
“This is primarily due to the length of the exam and variety of items that would require a consistently strong Internet connection to download within the time allotted for examinees to answer,” the UP System said.
The results of the special UC meetings of UP Diliman and UP Manila and of the referendums of the other CUs were submitted to the UP Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs on Oct. 28, in time for an update on UPCAT in the 1355th meeting of the UP Board of Regents on Oct. 29.
The University Councils are vested with the power to “fix the requirements for admission to any college or unit, graduation and grant of honors subject to minimum system-wide requirements,” according to Sections 16 and 17 of Republic Act No. 9500 or the UP Charter of 2008.
The Board of Regents, for its part, noted during its Oct. 29 meeting the report presented by the Office of Admissions and the OVAA as well as the choice of all University Councils in the UP System to forego administering the UPCAT for AY 2021-2022.
It also instructed the OAdms to come up with a modified freshmen admissions system specific to AY 2021-2022 by February 2021 in light of the pandemic.
This includes the use of big data analytics to arrive at a UP admission score model, which the OAdms, together with other concerned offices, is currently developing, as well as the determination by academic units of an additional layer of screening for particular programs, if deemed necessary.
Had there been no pandemic, UPCAT 2021 would have been administered on 10-11 October 2020, the university said.
The submission of UPCAT application Form 1 (personal data sheet) and Form 2 (high school records) is still required, although these forms have been modified to account for stricter data privacy, efficiency and the health and safety risks in this pandemic.
While UP encourages online accomplishment and submission, it is cognizant of technological limitations and will accept manually accomplished forms.
Following the decision of the University Councils, OAdms has set the start of the application period in December 2020.
“The exact date will be announced,” the university said.