SETTING a good example of a public-private partnership (PPP), Knowledge Channel Foundation Inc. (KCFI) renewed its long-time commitment with the Department of Education (DepEd) for another decade, benefiting around 4 million students nationwide.
Both parties executed last week their new 10-year memorandum of understanding (MOU), with an objective of further improving the quality of basic education in the country. “Knowledge Channel is one consistent partner for the past 17 years in a country where there is actually no education channel,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said during the MOU signing held at the agency’s headquarter in Pasig City. “This kind of partnership tells me that there is sustainability.”
KCFI President and Executive Director Rina Lopez-Bautista said, “We hope to have with this ceremonial signing an even closer relationship with the DepEd in seeking policy guidance, direction, information and coordination. We ask that DepEd actively use and promote the software and hardware that are in the schools and accessible to students and teachers, as we believe these can only improve learning outcomes.”
She said the MOU marks another milestone in their alliance, citing this is the fourth partnership agreement they have signed with the DepEd since their inception in 1999. It started when KCFI inked the first pact for one year with then-Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) Secretary Andrew Gonzales.
Because the not-for-profit organization has proven itself a good partner of the government in advancing academic standards in the Philippines, it then extended the tie-up in 2000, which was termed for a decade.
In 2009 the KCFI’s partnership with the DepEd, under the auspices of former Secretary Jesli Lapus, was renewed for another seven years.
Seeing how their relationship has become more and more progressive over the last 17 years, the operator of cable television channel Knowledge Channel and kchonline.ph—the first and only multimedia-education platform mainly focused on the Philippines’s basic-education curriculum—decided to sign yet another MOU even before the expiration of the previous agreement this year.
One of the important highlights of this latest pact is the inclusion of KCFI’s support to the new K to 12 Program, whose law was passed only in 2013, and the Alternative Learning System, which the organization has been backing up since 2010. “Our goal for public education has always been big, but it’s even bigger now, given the radical transformation of the education sector. The K to 12 Program, its curriculum and learning pedagogies are major drivers of that change in the Philippines,” Lopez-Bautista said.
“Globally, our learners, teachers and families are faced with 21st-century skills and the technology bubble. Technology and other innovations are tearing down walls, redefining learning spaces and emphasizing the importance of self-directed, constructivist and collaborative learning. And this is what we hope to help bring to our schools—evidenced-based new learning and mind-sets that will help our teachers and learners be out there and at par with the rest of the world,” she said.
Led by the Adopt-A-School Program that will annually engage about 4,000 public schools across the country, the MOU also includes the development of videos, games and interactive lessons on multiple platforms on air, online and offline.
In addition, there will be a continuous conduct of training programs for education leaders and teachers, such as the Learning Effectively through Enhanced Pedagogies (LEEP) and Superintendents Leadership Program (SLP).
The former initiative is a flagship endeavor aimed at contributing to the effective translation and use of the K to 12 curriculum concepts in the classroom instruction.
Through LEEP, KCFI has trained more than 3,500 teachers and principals to date from more than 1,200 schools. With the help of De La Salle University, SLP is a doctoral program comprised of a 12-module course intended to provide administrators the required level of competency vital in managing their respective school division amid reforms in the country’s educational system.
“I am proud and gratified to announce that almost every assistant superintendent, superintendent, assistant regional director and regional director were products of that wonderful partnership with other partners, but with Knowledge Channel and the Oscar Lopez Foundation as key promoters [and] passionate advocates of that reform,” the DepEd chief said.
“If there is anything that we will leave behind in this administration, it is the fact that we were able to pursue the reform, and we have trained a new set of new leaders who will hopefully live the reform, work on it and maybe willing to die for this reform,” he said.
Other inclusions in the agreement are the provision of awards to outstanding schools and education leaders. These include the Excellence in Education Transformation Awards that recognizes schools that have demonstrated excellence in innovation in many different things—curriculum design, learning spaces, child safety and access to technology, among others.
The KCFI top executive said this award-giving body has been doing this for the past three years, where the awardees receive a cash prize of P300,000 each, and the most transformative academic institution gets P500,000.
“This is our fourth year and this year, we’re actually launching the Oscar M. Lopez Award for Educational Leadership,” Lopez-Bautista said.
She said this new accolade will be feted to a leader, whether division- or school-wide, who has shown excellence in education practice. “One of the criteria is really bringing 21st-century education and learning skills to their schools, which includes technology, as well,” she said.
Under the MOU, pilot and intervention programs will be held to further improve learning skills of Filipino students.
“Studies after studies conducted over the last 17 years pointed out that Knowledge Channel’s learning intervention program has helped impact the acquisition of knowledge as evidenced in increased interest in learning, higher scores in achievement tests, higher in enrollment and completion rates, and decreased dropout rates across the country,” KCFI Chairman Oscar M. Lopez said.
As part of these undertakings, Lopez-Bautista said they are creating a new program with their new partnership with the government’s educational arm.
“[It’s] a learning design, which will help the DepEd and the public and private [sectors] improve the learning outcomes with learning resources like digital or video games; trainings of teachers, students and parents; and, of course, the media—both ABS-CBN and the Knowledge Channel,” she said.
KCFI is following the DepEd curriculum as guide in bringing early-childhood development, K to 12 and alternative-learning subjects and concepts to life on TV, the Internet and video on-demand in the classrooms, learning centers and homes.
Its multimedia-learning resource materials are seen in more than 4,000 public schools reaching over 4 million students and 50,000 teachers; 2,000 mobile teachers and ALS community centers that have access to the cable channel and 1,000-plus school-recipients of the Knowledge Channel Portable Media Library around the country. This also includes the almost 2 million households with access to Knowledge Channel via ABS-CBN TV Plus, Sky Cable, Destiny and 200 other provincial cable-service providers.