Tag: #iloiloPOC

The Resurgence of the Province of Iloilo in the Devolution of Education to LGUs (Part 4: Braving the Experiment)

Posted on by Florendo Guevara

The Province of Iloilo pioneers an innovation project that will test the wherewithal of LGUs to be at the frontier of its education needs and long-term goals.

Together with 11 LGUs, the DepEd, DILG, and the Local School Boards or LSBs, it embraced the Proof-of-Concept (POC) initiative, supported by Synergeia in partnership with EdCom 2 chaired by Senator Angara.

It braved demands and expectations of the POC’s hypothesis on the capability of the Province to demonstrate how strengthening LSBs, community participation and decentralization of certain provisions in the delivery of basic education can result in:

a. Every Grade 3 child can read well in English and Filipino;

b. Increase in creative and thinking ability of children;

c. Improvement in the performance of principals and teachers;

d. Community engagement in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of education programs; and

e. Use of performance budgeting in the disbursement of Special Education Funds by the LSBs.

In her presentation on the POC during the first organizational and planning meeting in Iloilo City, Synergeia’s Founding President,  Dr. Milwida Guevara detailed the functions to be assumed by the LSBs and the school community covering the needs assessment and post-testing of children, teachers and parents, the development of approach and strategies in the teaching of reading, the development and procurement of reading materials, the training of principals, teachers and parents and the implementation of learning activities of children.

Dr. Guevara noted that the devolution experiment is a big step forward to affirm the LGU’s capability to rethink, rewire, and redo the implementation of basic education that is aligned with the real needs and demands of the communities in the LGUs.

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