ABS-CBN Bayan Academy, Rex Book Store, Knowledge Channel launch Excellence in Education Awards

MANILA, Philippines - Schools are the bastions of learning, where young minds are nurtured, skills are honed, and the youth transformed to become responsible citizens. Thus, three leading institutions who value the importance of education — ABS-CBN Bayan Academy, Rex Book Store, and Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc. (KCFI) — have joined to recognize the efforts of schools that innovate and achieve expected outcomes, leading to improvements in the quality of their education programs and offerings.

This vision of the three institutions has allowed the creation of the Excellence in Education Transformation Awards (EETA). The search aims to recognize the efforts of an individual and institutions that have led the change to improve the quality of education in the Philippines through collaborative partnership.

“The EETA will motivate schools to pursue academic excellence and efficient school administration. The winners will exemplify transformation in the sense that it refers to the ability of the school to innovate and manage changes, to improve and turn around a difficult situation, and to upgrade or uplift education standards,” said Dr. Eduardo Morato Jr., ABS-CBN Bayan Academy president.

In this endeavor, the support of Rex Book Store is very crucial since the company is also a staunch supporter of school transformation.

“As the leading publisher in the Philippines, Rex Book Store has partnered with schools in teachers’ development and curriculum design that aims for sustainability and the relevance of their school systems. Like Bayan Academy, Rex Book Store is also an advocate of whole brain learning philosophy and innovation,” said Don Timothy I. Buhain, COO of Rex Book Store. “The EETA winners will hopefully be a guiding example for other schools. Their success stories can be replicated and shared with other institutions.”

All basic education schools nationwide are eligible for the EETA, which will have seven award categories including the top award.

In addition to the above categories, the Oscar M. Lopez Leadership in Educational Transformation Award will be given by Knowledge Channel to individuals/ organizations that show the qualities of collaborative efforts that paved the way for the accomplishment of their transformation. Knowledge Channel will conduct a separate screening process and come up with its own criteria for this special award.

“As a tribute to our chairman Oscar M. Lopez, who has served both as an inspiration and a driving force behind Knowledge Channel’s success in helping improve Philippine public education, KCFI is launching the Oscar M. Lopez Leadership in Educational Transformation Award,” said KCFI president Rina Lopez-Bautista. “Keeping true to our mission of educating and empowering learners through media, we hope that through this award, more and more sectors of society will actively take part in transforming Philippine education.”

The OML award is open to individuals (private or public) and organizations (sectarian or non-sectarian) engaged in advocacy work for education in the Philippines. These individuals, groups, institutions and organizations may or may not have their base of operations in the Philippines but should only have Philippine educational entities as beneficiaries.

Nominations for the EETA and the OML Leadership in Educational Transformation Award are now being accepted. The awarding will be held in September 2011. A cash prize of P300,000 and trophies await the winners in the seven categories, while the winner of the top award will receive P500,000 and a trophy.

For more information, call Zaida Villanueva, secretariat, EETA, at 920-3025, e-mail bayanacademy@gmail.com or zfvillanueva@abs-cbnbayanfoundation.com, or visit Bayan Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Development, 2/F Calderon Bldg., 827 EDSA, Quezon City. Log on to www.abs-cbnbayanfoundation.com for details.