Vital ties with community pave way for education uplift

MANILA, Philippines - In 2004, Tayud National High School in Barangay Tayud, Consolacion, Cebu scored a measly 17% passing rate at the Regional Achievement Test conducted by the Department of Education. In 2009, it registered 68%.  This turnaround is a testament on how dynamic partnerships work for education enhancement.

Tayud and two other schools from Central Visayas ranked at the bottom three in terms of school performance. This picture changed when the Coalition for Better Education (CBE) came into the picture to address this dismal performance reflected by the achievement tests.

With Globe Telecom participating as CBE member, the CBE linked up with Tayud to intervene through INCUBE (Involving Communities for Better Education), a shared governance module designed to reverse the trend. INCUBE primarily involved the community to address the problems that beset the education sector. Tayud was chosen as a pilot site for the project. 

CBE Executive Director Luchi Flores relates that education was plagued by system-wide problems like the lack of training of teachers, the mismatch of skills, the perennial shortage of classrooms and the inability of the curriculum at that time to address the needs of students. CBE also noticed a lack of support from the community in addressing these problems. 

Being a member of CBE since 2004, Globe was approached to support the INCUBE project. Internet connection was provided by the country’s leading telecommunications company under its Internet-in-School or ISP Program, a component strategy under Globe Bridging Communities (Globe BridgeCom) - the company’s umbrella CSR program.

Being ISP recipients, Tayud also benefited from Globe’s Global Filipino Teachers’ Program or GFT. This is a holistic 6-day intensive training program that equips teachers with adequate skills to use ICT for education. CBE is also Globe’s partner in the conduct of GFT.

Tayud ICT coordinator and GFT facilitator Myrna Soco shares that there has been a lot of improvements since the teachers adopted the ICT integration strategy of GFT.

Aside from the provision of ISP and GFT programs, Globe is also part of the community resource center, which has started operation last month. The community center — a partnership between the school, the local government and the community — is built to help promote the products and services of Tayud.

Tayud is expected to benefit from this as some of the proceeds will go to improving the facilities of the school. The school is looking at a separate computer laboratory solely for ICT integration of school subjects. The current computer laboratories are mainly used by students majoring in computer for their Technology and Livelihood Education Class.