Tag: #educationgovernance

The Resurgence of the Province of Iloilo in the Devolution of Education to LGUS (Part 3 – Braving the Monster)

Posted on by synergeia

The Proof of Concept (POC) initiative chose the Province of Iloilo as a test case for this experimentation on the devolution of basic education to LGUs because of the province’s culture of innovation and its capacity to venture into new strategies and approaches for the improvement of the performance and quality of education. 

Iloilo plays its battle where the expectation is for all players to be open and ready to fight and brave the monsters, so to speak, in terms of the big tasks ahead of them. 

Clearly, the POC is anchored on the strength of its capacity-building activities for teachers, parents, and the leadership of the Local School Boards (LSBs) and thus emphasized as critical and necessary for the betterment of readers, particularly from the Grade 3 level, in the province. 

Synergeia’s Dr. Milwida Guevara noted that the empowerment of LSBs towards increasing its role in policy formulation is a key consideration in this innovation exercise and provides a new way of thinking in transforming how basic education is presently approached.

In the organizational and planning meeting of the POC in Iloilo City, the participants, composed of 11 LGUs, the DepEd, the DILG, and the LSBs, expressed their passion and desire to work together, mindful that when they brave the monsters and win, the Province of Iloilo concludes the experimentation with a constructive validation of devolution of education to LGUs as the best way to go and emerges as the model economy which may stoke the fire for an enabling legislation for its adoption by the entire LGU network. 

Read next: The Brave Experiment

Resurgence of the Province of Iloilo in the Devolution of Education to LGUs (Part 2 -Facing The Mirror)

Posted on by Florendo Guevara

Facing the Mirror

The Proof-of-Concept initiative puts the Province of Iloilo at the center of an innovation process that generates new ideas and enables experimentation of never-tried-before strategies and actions to address the devolution of education dynamic in the LGUs.

In the first organizational and planning meeting of the POC, Synergeia pushed the first step in the innovation process which was to define the variables, issues and challenges of education confronting the Province of Iloilo, underpinning the felt need for change in the sector. 

The meeting, which brought together the province’s education champions from 11 LGUs, DepEd, DILG, and the LSBs, began with an introspective exercise into the realities behind why we are not achieving as much success in the reading performance of our children in Grade 3.

Like facing the mirror, the insights they shared were honest and unfiltered. In sum, the mirror showed seven truths for which all agreed that they would confront with a solid commitment to change and deliver. 

  1. The reading proficiency level of Grade 3 students is limited to word recognition and comprehension needs to be developed and improved. 
  2. Teaching English begins in the second semester of Grade 2 but it was cited that it could be done earlier with the example of how the English alphabet is taught in daycare centers to predominantly pre-school children, like in Batad. 
  3. Learning environments influence reading skills as shown by differences in the standards of learning in Manila vs provinces. 
  4. Learning English and Filipino at the same time is highly doable.
  5. Economic, social, and institutional factors affect the performance and quality of learning in schools.
  6. The concept of devolution can be extended as a framework for accountability and incentives, where all stakeholders can work together and be accountable for, be empowered by an incentive/disincentive system, and be measured by clear, comprehensible, and measurable results or outcomes.
  7. The current performance measurement and management system, including the set of indicators or metrics, must be evaluated and aligned with the goal of raising the performance and quality of learning consistent with international standards. 

Read next post on: Braving the Monsters of learning in the Province of Iloilo 

The Resurgence of Iloilo Province in the Devolution of Education to LGUs (Part 1 -The Meeting of the Minds and Hearts)

Posted on by Florendo Guevara


Post 1: The Meeting of the Minds and Hearts

Do LGUs have the capacity to be responsible and accountable for the decentralization of education and improvement of delivery and performance of basic education?

Let us begin with Iloilo Province. The province was chosen as the pilot test site for implementing this Proof of Concept (POC) on the devolution of education to the LGUs from the Department of Education (DepEd) as the best strategy to raise the benchmarks, particularly in reading and comprehension, for Filipino children.

Specifically, the goal is for children in Grade 3 to read in English and Filipino well, for both word recognition and comprehension, by the end of 2024.

The POC will have three capacity-building components: a. Best practices in teaching reading; b. Reinvention of Local School Boards (LSBs); and c. Training of parents.

Armed with the support of the Office of Senator Angara, through the Education Commission 2 or EDCOM2, and a seed fund of Php 5.08 million earmarked in the General Appropriations Act of 2024, Synergeia led the first organizational and planning meeting in Iloilo City with eleven LGUs, regional officials of the DepED, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and members of the LSBs.

The meeting was very successful in the way the issues were openly expressed, a consensus was established on the rules of collaboration and roles of accountability and management and a solid commitment of all stakeholders involved was forged to ensure the success of this POC initiative.

What are the insights into the issues and challenges of education in the province of Iloilo that provide the POC’s framework for innovation success in an LGU?

Read this in the next post: Facing The Mirror in the Province of Iloilo