Mobile teachers undergo survival training

MANILA, Philippines – Seven hundred alternative learning system (ALS) mobile teachers have undergone a five-day basic survival training program to equip themselves in the challenges of working in remote areas of the country.

Dubbed as “ALS: Activity-Based Learning Experience”, the activity was held at Galilee Place Resort in Barangay San Sebastian, Batangas from May 18 to 22 which was composed of Bureau of Alternative Learning System of the Department of Education, Boy Scouts of the Philippines, Girl Scouts of the Philippines and the Philippine National Red Cross. ALS mobile teachers from National Capital Region, Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A, 4B and Region 5 attended the training.

Included in the modules were physical fitness program, applying cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), first aid, International Humanitarian Law, home nursing, emergency management and forest survival skills training.

Carolina Guerrero, director for Bureau of Alternative Learning System, in an interview with the STAR said it is very necessary for them to train their mobile teachers so they would know what to do in case they were placed in a compromising situation during their tour of duty in rural areas.

Mobile teachers are not considered as formal school room teachers but are the ones tasked to teach the marginalized sector of society. ALS is a parallel learning system that provides a viable alternative to the existing formal education instruction. It encompasses both the non-formal and informal sources of knowledge and skills.

The ALS mobile teachers will not teach subjects from the textbook, instead, they teach practical reasonings, entrepreneurship and honing natural talents learned outside the formal school.

“Sometimes mobile teachers will have to go upland to meet the indigenous people which is so hazardous, that’s why we have to train them in basic survival techniques,” she said.

Guerrero said enrollees who finished the program which the ALS offers will be given an elementary or high school certificate duly signed by the Education Secretary and recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and TESDA. She however expressed her sentiments in the continued decline in numbers of their mobile teachers which the Department of Budget and Management provides them.

Guerrero likewise asked the Department of Education to extend a good career path for their mobile teachers, saying – “they (mobile teachers) don’t receive any promotions, if they wish to have a promotion, they need to go back to the formal school system to acquire it.”

In first week of June, the second batch of mobile teachers from Visayas and Mindanao will be having their survival training activity in Malagos, Davao City.