EIGHTEEN state universities and colleges (SUCs) are joining the online Strategic Communication Planning Workshop: Enhancing Communication Skills for Higher Education Institutions in the Philippines (StratCom4HEIs).
The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) said the online StratCom4HEIs training workshop was designed in collaboration with the College of Development Communication of the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
With this, SEARCA said it continues to implement the Leveling Up Philippine Higher Education Institutions in Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Resources (LevelUPHEI-AFAR) project.
In collaboration with SEARCA's Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources, the LevelUPHEI-AFAR project is funded by the Commission on Higher Education.
On its website, SEARCA said the project aims to level up Philippine HEIs in agriculture, fisheries and natural resources toward enhanced relevance and competitiveness in the 21st century.
SEARCA said the project also aims to upgrade the institutional capacities of the SUC-Association of Colleges of Agriculture in the Philippines Inc. (SUC-ACAP) and its 75 members through short-term training programs and cross-visits and participation in UC activities, and to improve their standing in the world university rankings.
The online StratCom4HEIs started on February 1 and will end on March 14 through the SEARCA Online Learning and Virtual Engagements or Solve platform.
The center said under the short-term training programs component of the project, the StratCom4HEIs intends to boost the participants' ability to articulate the role of public communication in higher education in the Philippines.
It is designed to capacitate participants to describe the concept and elements of public communication, develop a public communication plan for their respective institutions and learn essential skills in public communication, it added.
With 24 participants from 18 SUCs, SEARCA said StratCom4HEIs will help HEIs upgrade their strategic communication and communication for development methodologies amid the current fast-changing landscape of information and communication technologies.
"This online training workshop consists of eight modules and seven workshops, which will lead the participants to develop strategic communication plans for their respective home institutions," SEARCA said.
The implementation of the training workshop is supervised by the center's Education and Collective Learning Department-Training for Development Unit, while SEARCA and its Management Information Systems Unit provide both the technical and administrative support for the program.