MANILA, Philippines - If an idea is right, nothing can stop it. Since its inception in 2002 by noted physicists Christopher Bernido and Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido, the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF) Dynamic Learning Program (DLP)—an innovative teaching framework designed to optimize student academic performance despite the socio-economic limitations faced by the Philippine basic education system—has not ceased attracting educators and learners chiefly through tangible results that have proven its efficiency.
The CVIF-DLP has since been embraced by over 200 public and private schools nationwide, all of which believe in the “CVIF-DLP effect” seen in, among other indicators, the exemplary performance of students in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) standardized tests (National Career Assessment Examination and National Secondary Achievement Test) as well as in the University of the Philippines (UP) College Admission Test.
“Let the numbers tell the story,” is Dr. Christopher’s reply whenever he is asked how effective CVIF-DLP is. “And don’t just look at figures from our school in Bohol,” he would add. An internal assessment made by the University of the East (UE), which recently adopted CVIF-DLP, showed third year high school students receiving mostly “poor” and “low average” scores in science in 2012 changing to a majority getting average and above average marks just a year after the CVIF-DLP implementation. What’s even more dramatic is the fact that almost everyone previously ranked “very poor”, “poor”, and “below average” moved up. “That’s what makes CVIF-DLP effective,” said the Bernidos, “hatak lahat, walang naiiwan, unlike other frameworks that tend to widen the gap between the non-performers and those who excel.”
“There are behavioral indicators, too,” claimed the Bernido couple, quoting a teacher from UE. “We were told that their students now take the initiative to read textbooks even if they are not required to do so, something that has rarely, if ever, happened before.”
Support from PSF
Since 2010, the PLDT-Smart Foundation (PSF) and Smart Communications have been supporting the implementation of the CVIF-DLP in schools in the DepEd division of Cagayan de Oro City, where they observed the resilience of the program against the deleterious effects of Sendong. They have also been working with DepEd-ARMM with schools in Basilan province and Lamitan City using the CVIF-DLP program since August 2012.
PSF and Smart have also expanded the implementation of the Learning Physics as One Nation (LPON) Project, conceived by the Bernido’s and initially supported by the Fund for Assistance to Private Education (FAPE), to address the severe shortage of qualified physics teachers in the country. Initially implemented by FAPE in 34 private schools in different parts of the country in 2008, the project has reached over 200 private and public schools by 2011. With PSF and Smart support, the LPON is envisioned to be a springboard for high calibre education and training in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines.
“The Bernidos and the CVIF-DLP have shown how mastery and passion can come together for love of country and produce real results! We always think of innovation in terms of technology and apps, but the CVIF-DLP has also shown us that innovation can happen by going to the root of the problem and the basic make-up of the human person, and in the case of education, how the brain works,” said Ma. Esther O. Santos, president of PLDT-Smart Foundation (PSF).
Real results
With so much positive feedback that comes their way, however, the 2010 Ramon Magsaysay awardees recognized for “their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty,” admitted to having been pondering on what could possibly be a greater, though perhaps not deliberately intended, CVIF-DLP effect: a renewed emphasis on the values of honesty and personal integrity.
The year after they started their little CVIF-DLP foray in Jagna, the Bernidos started writing about it. “It seemed to work in our school in Bohol and we felt obliged to share our ideas with whomever would be interested because we thought it might help them,” recalled Dr. Marivic. Little did the Bernido’s know that this idea they couldn’t wait to share would reach as far as Zamboanga and Basilan, thanks to PSF-Smart-DLP ambassadors, trained precisely to help spread the word about the program. Dr. Marivic said, “Private corporations like the PSF are really more experienced in ‘scaling up’ projects and there’s nothing like teaming up with one that believes that an idea that worked in one school might work in so many others as well.”