Tag: #regionaleducationcouncil

The Resurgence of the Province of Iloilo in the Devolution of Education to LGUs (Part 5- The Drivers of Change and their Commitment)

Posted on by Florendo Guevara

Change comes more from managing the journey than announcing the destination” – William Bridges

The success of the Proof of Concept (POC) initiative, which tests the capacity of the Province of Iloilo to take leadership in the implementation of basic education, rests on the drivers of change, principally the local chieftains of the province and the officials of DepEd and DILG.

Execution is critical and necessary for results-based change management. It requires a serious degree of commitment and action from the drivers of change to derive the desired value from this devolution innovation exercise.

In the planning and organizational meeting for the POC, the drivers of change, in an eventful signing of the Pledge of Commitment, accepted responsibility and leadership for this mission to raise the quality of learning and reading for the children of their province.

The drivers of change who signed included:

1       Governor Arthur Defensor Jr., Iloilo

2       Mayor Oscar Villegas Jr,  Lemery

3       Mayor Jon Aying,  Sara

4       Mayor Lydia  Grabato ,  Mina

5       Board Member  Jason Gonzales,  Panay  REC  Chairman

6       Director Juan Ingeniero-  DILG Regional Director,  Reg 6

7       Asst Regional Director Victor De Gracia,  DepEd  Region VI

8       Mayor Jerry Treñas-  Iloilo City

9       Mayor Nielo  Tupas – Barotac Viejo

10     Mayor Elvira Alarcon – Batad

11     Mayor Elizalde Pueyo –  Cabatuan

12     Mayor Janette Colada – Guimbal

13     Mayor Vicente Escorpion Jr –  Igbaras

14     Mayor Francis Amboy –  Maasin

15     Mayor Vicente Jaen – Leganes

16     Dr. Ernesto Servillon Jr –  Schools Division Superintendent of Iloilo Province

17     Dr. Ma Luz De Los Reyes –  Schools Division Superintendent of Iloilo City

The Pledge of Commitment states that:

 “We, the Governor and Mayors of Iloilo Province and the Mayor of Iloilo City, along with our partners from the Department of Education and the Department of Interior and Local Government, share the wisdom and urgent mission of helping every child to learn well.

We believe that Local Government Units, and their Local School Boards, in partnership with the schools and their communities can introduce positive changes to strengthen the delivery of quality education.

We accept the responsibility of participating in a Program that can demonstrate how the delivery of basic education can be efficiently devolved to local government.

We commit to provide leadership and dedicate resources to accomplish the following activities:

  1. Strengthening the leadership and  effectiveness of Local School Boards;
  2. Building the capacity of teachers in developing reading competencies of male and female children;
  3. Providing opportunities for parents and guardians to be Nanay-Tatay-Teachers;
  4. Organizing communities to gain support for the program;
  5. Developing Public-Private Partnerships so that children can learn better;
  6. Developing learning materials that reflect the stories, history, values, and traditions of the Iloilo   people; and
  7. Supporting inclusive activities that will enhance the creativity and developmental values of our children.

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