Future ready: Modernizing an 85-year-old institution

MANILA, Philippines — How do you turn an 85-year-old educational institution that’s steeped in tradition into a learning hub for future-ready students?

This was the challenge for Roosevelt College Inc., which was built in 1933 (then called Marikina Academy) to offer private, non-sectarian secondary education for children who wanted to learn more than shoemaking and farming.

When it reopened in 1945, it was renamed Roosevelt Memorial High School, in honor of the late wartime US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 2016, the FEU Group of Schools saw potential in Roosevelt College, which operates three campuses (Cainta and Rodriguez in Rizal Province, and Marikina City). In FEU’s first two years of managing Roosevelt College, it constructed additional classrooms, a covered multipurpose gym, and a four-story, air-conditioned building in its Rodriguez campus.

Early this year, construction of a new seven-story building in the Marikina campus also commenced, and is scheduled to be finished in early 2019. Construction in Cainta is also set to start in 2019.

Modernizing the 85-year-old institution did not stop there. Facilities have been upgraded. Admissions and administrative functions are now automated. The school has also institutionalized the use of education technology in phases and all campuses will have broadband access of 100 mbps by June.

As with any major organizational change, the shift was initially challenging for Roosevelt College.

“The most immediate benefits to Roosevelt College came from innovations in curricula, approaches to learning and teaching, and the introduction of the best educational technologies available in the market,” said vice president for Academic Affairs Gillian Joyce Virata.

Teachers had to be guided through the transition, but once they saw how the culture of innovation and creativity benefited the students, they became agents of positive change. The school makes it a point to continuously expose them to best practices in progressive education.

Aside from sending them to conferences, seminars, and workshops, teachers are also given opportunities to learn from each other by driving their own special training sessions.

Sharing experiences with each other has helped teachers learn best practices that have been applied by their colleagues in their classrooms.

“Now, our institutional culture is set up in such a way that we feel secure in trying out new ways to constantly improve the teaching-learning experience for our entire school community as well as the wider communities in which we operate,” Virata said.

Future-ready education

“We believe that our main responsibility is to make sure that our learners feel confident about their education and that we are able to help them become self-directed, with a sense of fulfillment in everything that they do,” Virata said.

There is also an emphasis on education that empowers students to decide on and pursue their own socially relevant future. 

“We aim to prepare our graduates for the world of work but, primarily, we strive to help them design their own future based on their interests and passions. A Roosevelt College education should situate personal growth within the context of community growth. Being able to spot social gaps and work out ways to address them through collaboration should be among the key attributes that our students develop,” Virata said.

The goal, in short, is for every Roosevelt College graduate to be ready for a future, whatever shape or form it may be.

To this end, one of the FEU Group’s most important investments is a unique Blended Learning System. This system complements the traditional classroom setup with a weekly one-hour session in a study hall where students do self-directed learning individually or in groups with a facilitator. This approach has helped their students develop self-discipline as well as hone their skills in time and work management.

At the core of Roosevelt College’s “future-ready” education is technology.

“This coming school year, we will be using the CANVAS learning management system for students from Grade 4 to graduate school, and by all faculty from preschool up. CANVAS is used by Ivy-league schools in the U.S. We are excited to be in the same league as Harvard and Yale,” Virata said.

CANVAS is a solution that helps educators document and deliver courses, as well as track the learning progress of students. It allows students to have access to learning materials even outside the classroom for a seamless and on-demand learning experience.

The changes will keep coming. One thing will remain certain: the way Dr. Michael M. Alba, president of FEU and Roosevelt College, defines a Roosevelt College Inc. education.

“An RCI education should allow students to own their learning goals and build resilience, self-confidence, and self-knowledge; as well as provide them with opportunities to tap into their creativity to pursue their interests and passions.”