Dr. Melinda dela Peña Bandalaria, Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), has been awarded the Individual Prize for the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) Prize of Excellence for 2021 during the ICDE Virtual Global Conference Week 2021 held on 25 – 29 October 2021.
Chancellor Bandalaria was recognized for her outstanding contribution in the field of open and distance education and learning. Besides being Chancellor of UPOU, Dr. Bandalaria holds a post as Member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU), appointed as ICDE’s Ambassador for Open Educational Resources (OER), and selected as member of the ICDE OER Advisory Committee (OERAC). She earned her PhD in Development Communication from the University of the Philippines Los Baños and completed her Graduate Certificate in Distance Education at the Indiana University in Bloomington, USA.
The ICDE is the leading, global membership organisation that works towards bringing accessible, quality education to all through online, open and distance learning. It was founded in 1938 in Canada as the International Council for Correspondence Education and currently has members from over 60 countries worldwide.
For more information regarding ICDE Virtual Global Conference Week 2021, you may visit its website at https://www.icde.org/virtual-global-conference-week.
Written by Jaime P. Guimbao
Edited by Joane V. Serrano and Anna Cañas-Llamas
Graphics by Lovelyn Petrasanta and Gian Macatangay