First of a five-part series
MANILA, Philippines — The pandemic has resulted in so much suffering to many Filipinos but this has also brought out the best in us, as heroes from all walks of life have emerged to serve those in distress and in pain.
Answering the call to be heroic are 10,135 public school teachers from the Department of Education, NCR, who took up the challenge to transform themselves into online teachers in time for the October school year opening. Less than two months of training and preparation is a tall order for any teacher no matter how experienced one is.
Online education is a new realm of teaching requiring new pedagogies, new techniques, and new technology tools. We call our Filipino teachers heroes because they will do anything to ensure that they deliver quality instruction to their students amidst their own struggles during this pandemic.
On the week of National Heroes Day, we celebrate the first batch of participants to the HEROES 2021 Project, which stands for Help Educators Rise to Online Education for SY 2020-2021 with an awarding ceremony led by DepEd NCR Regional Director Malcolm Garma, together with our corporate sponsors Unionbank, UBPXcellerator, and CitySavings Bank.
Participants will receive the Stage 1 Certificate from Thames-Edurescue, and then move on to their Stage 2 Singapore Certificate from Thames-Akadasia.
HEROES 2021 is a two-stage intensive training program aimed at rapidly building the capability of public schoolteachers on online teaching for the incoming School Year ‘20-‘21. The project aims to train and certify 500,000 teachers nationwide during school-year ‘20-’21.
This project was initiated by Thames International School as an answer to the call of the Department of Education through Undersecretary Toni Umali for private sector partners lead by Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) for the immense task of migrating to modular and blended learning.
DepEd NCR is the first region to embrace this project for according to Regional Director Malcom Garma, “We need to build the confidence of our teachers for them to embrace the challenges of the new ways of teaching and learning. And there is no better way to build their confidence than to train them and train them well. We hope that through these online courses of the HEROES 2021 project, our 10,000 teachers who just completed the Stage 1 as online students will all be prepared to become online teachers for this school year.”
The HEROES 2021 Project Consortium includes learning partners EduRescue Philippines and Akadasia Singapore together with Thames International in training and certifying our teachers on online education. Supporting the project to deliver the Stage 1 training for free to all DepEd teachers nationwide are our two corporate partners mainly the country’s first Digital Bank, Unionbank of the Philippines and CitySavings Bank, a proud supporter of teachers since 2008.
According to UnionBank Chief Human Resource Officer Michelle Rubio, "During unprecedented times, it is the human spirit that carries us through. The HEROES 2021 program, composed of the collective effort of individuals and teams, will go a long way in helping others adapt to new technologies and ways of teaching."
Furthermore, Paula Viegelmann-Ruelan, CitySavings Bank AVP for Reputation and Brand Management, says that "CitySavings Bank actively supports DepEd’s Learning Continuity Plan through Heroes 2021 to ensure that teachers continue to upgrade their online teaching skills. By providing our educators with the skills and tools through this program, we hope that together we can make education possible beyond the classroom walls."
As aptly said by Winston Churchill, never waste a good crisis.
In challenging times such as this pandemic, one must question the current reality because things are going wrong, and thus, rapid answers are needed and the solution may well be found outside our comfort zones.
The reality is that the Philippines is a disaster-prone country even before this pandemic. Every disaster whether it be natural disasters such as typhoons, volcano eruptions, or man-made problems such as terrorism and social unrest always results in education being disrupted with our students as the victims.
I believe that this crisis brought by the pandemic is “not to be wasted” and can be used as the springboard to bring Philippine education to the digital age of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The HEROES 2021 Project is just a beginning as we move forward to ReImagine Education in the Philippines.
UP NEXT: Online Education: challenges and opportunities
Joel Santos is the co-founder and President of Thames International School and author for the ReImagine Education Series. These are his views as an educator and proponent of the HEROES 2021 Project. For schools and teachers who want to participate in the program, we can be reached at Heroes2021@thames.edu.ph or visit www.heroes2021.org.