Capacitation of essential school workers in compliance with Philippine COVID-19 guidelines:A qualitative study

Introduction@#Organizations, including higher education institutions (HEIs), have been mandated to protect employees from the threats of the COVID-19.@*Objective@#This study sought to describe the perceptions of essential school workers (ESWs) of selected HEIs in the southern Manila area in terms of how they were capacitated in compliance with national guidelines.@*Methods@#A total of seven HEIs participated in this qualitative study. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among four sectors of ESWs: security, maintenance, health services, and office staff. Thematic analysis was used to draw insights from the narratives of the FGDs.@*Results@#Three themes emerged from the FGDs: material capacitation, programmatic capacitation, and issues and challenges.@*Conclusion@#This study highlights that from the perspective of ESWs, HEIs in the southern Manila area exert efforts to comply with IATF guidelines through various expressions of material and programmatic capacitation to protect them from the threat of COVID-19. However, results also demonstrate challenges that deter full compliance and consistent implementation of the guidelines across institutions.

Research ethics committees in Manila Schools: Exploring the reasons for its non-existence

Objectives@#This study aimed to explore the reasons behind the “resistance” of higher education institutions (HEIs) located in the south Manila area in creating research ethics committees (RECs). It also examined the proportion of researches in these HEIs with human participation. @*Methods@#Research directors underwent key informant interviews while faculty researchers participated in focus group discussions. Universal sampling was employed on all researches in the schools to determine the proportion with human participants and to know if they are ethically “high risk“ or “low risk” in terms of the participants’ involvement. @*Results@#We included ten higher education institutions in this study. Research directors and faculty researchers agreed that their school should have a REC and that studies should undergo ethical evaluation before commencement of data collection. Half of all researches were found to have human participant involvement and, after developing a tool to determine the risk level to participants, this study found that ethically high risk researches are found to represent 10% as a proportion of the total researches done in the schools. @*Conclusion@#Almost all respondents in this study agreed that RECs should be created; however, there are financial challenges that schools face in establishing RECs.

Capacitation of essential school workers in compliance with Philippine COVID-19 guidelines:A qualitative study

Introduction@#Organizations, including higher education institutions (HEIs), have been mandated to protect employees from the threats of the COVID-19. @*Objective@#This study sought to describe the perceptions of essential school workers (ESWs) of selected HEIs in the southern Manila area in terms of how they were capacitated in compliance with national guidelines, @*Methods@#A total of seven HEIs participated in this qualitative study. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among four sectors of ESWs: security, maintenance, health services, and office staff. Thematic analysis was used to draw insights from the narratives of the FGDs. @*Results@#Three themes emerged from the FGDs: material capacitation, programmatic capacitation, and issues and challenges. @*Conclusion@#This study highlights that from the perspective of ESWs, HEIs in the southern Manila area exert efforts to comply with IATF guidelines through various expressions of material and programmatic capacitation to protect them from the threat of COVID-19. However, results also demonstrate challenges that deter full compliance and consistent implementation of the guidelines across institutions.

Public policy on alcohol consumption and accessibility: Implications to its implementation in Metro Manila universities and colleges

@#<p><strong>OBJECTIVES: </strong>The study aimed to identify alcohol-related advertisements and access to alcohol outside selected Metro Manila schools as well as to identify alcohol-related ordinances and determine their enforcement.</p><p><strong>METHODS:</strong> An area within 100 meters of ten randomly selected colleges in Metro Manila were included in the study using the Global Positioning System (GPS). These areas were grid-searched for alcohol related advertisements and alcohol outlets. Ordinances related to alcohol were also identified.</p><p><strong>RESULTS:</strong> An average of six advertisements and 12 establishments which sell alcoholic drinks were seen near the selected colleges in Metro Manila. Three of the five cities where the ten colleges were situated had ordinances which prohibit selling to minors while two cities prohibit issuing of liquor licenses to establishments within 200 meters from a school.</p><p><strong>CONCLUSION:</strong> Alcohol-related advertisements and alcohol outlets were plentiful near Metro Manila colleges even when there were ordinances which prohibit giving licenses to establishments to sell alcoholic beverages.</p>