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Mindanao Provinces to Benefit from New Project

The Center if currently implementing Project ELSA (Education and Livelihood Skills Alliance) under the Education Quality and Access for Learning and Livelihood Skills (EQuALLS) Project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

ELSA is a basic education development project focused on some of the poorer provinces of Mindanao. This initiative hopes to create community-based learning opportunities, improve teaching capacity for teaching Science, Math and English, promote the re-integration of out-of-school youth, and reform education policies affecting the efficient delivery of education services in the region.

The SEAMEO INNOTECH ELSA Projects specifically address:

a) Improving teaching capacity for teaching Science, Math and English, with focus on increasing access to basic education using innovative technology; and

b) Reforming education policy, with focus on equivalency matrix policy research.

In improving teaching capacity for teaching Science, Math and English, the project hopes to expand access to and enhance quality of basic education in Mindanao towards the attainment of economic productivity, peace and development. This could be achieved by expanding and enhancing basic education learnings in Science, Math and English; training teachers on newer strategies, including ICT-based approaches; providing technical assistance in the content planning and development/production/testing of learning materials for both teachers/trainers and for learners; implementing learner responsive and culturally sensitive strategies, including ICT-based approaches, aimed at increasing access and improving quality; and, generating data that would serve as inputs to scaling up and sustaining the said strategies.

The provinces that stand to benefit from the project are Maguindanao in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Cotabato and South Cotabato in Region 12. The project targets Grades 5 and 6 students, teachers and schools. These schools will be provided with television sets and other audiovisual equipment, MediaMaster, satellite dish, mobile phones for downloading educational videos, lesson plans and teacher's guides, teacher training, community orientation and technical assistance throughout the project cycle.

Beyond the formal school, ELSA hopes to promote accreditation and equivalency (A&E) as well as alternative learning systems (ALS) for out-of-school youth and adult learners. Towards this end, it will review and adapt available A&E learning materials and develop new ones in the context of Mindanao setting, conduct of ALS learning sessions. Project partners in these activities are the DepEd Bureau of Alternative Learning System, Technology and Livelihood Learning Resource Center, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, World Ed and Real World Productions.

The EQuALLS Project is being managed in the Philippines by Creative Associates International.

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