Text2Teach to reach over 1,000 public schools

Manila, Philippines - A campaign led by the Ayala Foundation to raise the quality of teaching in public schools by harnessing the power of text, Text2Teach is set to benefit more public schools when the program goes on its fourth phase of implementation this year.

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, co-vice chair of the Ayala Foundation, Inc., and chairman and chief executive officer of the Ayala Corp., said yesterday their foundation will increase the number of beneficiary schools of Text2Teach from the 350 public schools covered by the program in Phase 3 to more than 1,000 schools as they start implementation of Phase 4 this month.

Zobel said the program was one of the Ayala group’s corporate social responsibility projects helping education by partnering with other government and non-governmental organizations in a scheme falling under the public-private partnership espoused by the government.

“We are great believers of public-private partnerships,” Zobel said in a speech at the presentation of Text2Teach’s accomplishment report for 2010, and the launch of Phase 4.

“We sympathize that the challenges are great. Any small role we can play, we’re delighted to do to help the government,” Zobel added.

Text2Teach is a collaboration, led by the Ayala Foundation and companies under Ayala Corporation primarily Globe Telecoms, between the private and public sectors to help Grades 5 and 6 pupils learn better through some 400 educational video clips on English, Math and Science that can be downloaded via short messaging system (SMS), more popularly known as text messages.

The Text2Teach Steering Commitee is composed of Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro; DepEd Undersecretary for Plans and Programs Yolanda Quijano; Nokia head of corporate social investments Gregory Elphinston; Ernest Cu, president and CEO of Globe; Victoria Garchitorena, president of the Ayala Foundation; Dr. Ramon Bacani, former DepEd officer-in-charge and currently executive director of SEAMAO (South East East Asia Education Ministers Organization)-INNOTECH; and Dennis Lazo, general manager of Pearson Philippines.

Under Phase 4, Text2Teach will undertake a review, revision, and enhancement of existing education materials used in the program; develop and produce new videos and teacher’s guides; train trainers and teachers using the Text2Teach education materials; expand the beneficiaries by adding 850 schools to the 350 already covered in Phase 1 to 3; upgrade the 205 satellite and media master schools; and evaluation.

Phase 4 will see the return of the Pearson Foundation to lead the development of new downloadable educational materials for English, Science and Mathematics.

The program will also be made available across the country, entering public schools in the Visayas and Mindanao.