Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles

RCTQ’s current partnerships with the Office of the Cabinet Secretary (OCS) and various offices of the Department of the Education (DepEd) were highlighted on Day 2 of the Philippine Normal University (PNU) Teacher Quality and Quality Assurance Summit on 28 January 2020 in Baguio City.

 

Advancing Teacher Quality Across Agencies
In the Summit’s keynote address by Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles, he discussed the circumstances that led to his office’s current collaboration with RCTQ through the Technical Working Group for Teacher Quality (TWG-TQ).

“My office and CHED have been tasked to conduct further interagency discussions on the improvement of pre-service education of teachers. This directive gives further impetus on what has already been established, and we’re working with RCTQ on this,” said Sec. Nograles.

At the 43rd cabinet meeting on 6 November 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte directed the OCS, which is under the Office of the President, and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to organize a “national effort for quality basic education” and conduct interagency discussions towards this end.

In his speech, Secretary Nograles enumerated the national government’s gains in advancing education. He reported for instance that from July 2016 to December 2018, a total of 63,024 new classrooms and 4,136 technical – vocational laboratories were constructed, while 139,897 new teaching items were created and over 40.85 million textbooks and instructional materials were printed.

“Quality education is possible if we have good teachers. We need to put in place a system that supports teacher quality,” he said, beginning with “a body or agency or government instrumentality that we can use as oversight agency dedicated to teacher quality,” the Secretary said.

RCTQ and its partner, the SiMERR National Research Centre in Australia represented by its Director Dr. John Pegg, have been providing research and technical support to the TWG, and helped in the development of the TWG-TQ Report titled Making Quality Practice Common Practice: Enhancing Teacher and School Leader Quality in the Philippines.

DepEd Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan

NEAP Transformation and Sulong Edukalidad
For the Summit’s Plenary 1, DepEd Undersecretary Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan discussed the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP) transformation as the agency’s landmark reform in improving teacher quality.

Undersecretary Malaluan is the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Secretary.

NEAP transformation—which forms part of Sulong Edukalidad, DepEd’s new reform campaign to achieve quality in basic education—is backed by RCTQ’s research work.

DepEd Undersecretary Jesus Mateo (middle) with PNU officials

Embedding the PPST in DepEd
In his talk titled “Bridging the Gap: PNU’s Role in Raising Teacher Quality in the Country,” DepEd Undersecretary Mr. Jesus Lorenzo Mateo presented how the RCTQ-developed Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) gained traction in reforming the agency’s major human resource systems.

“By ensuring that the PPST is embedded into all human resource systems of DepEd, we ensure that the standards become part of our teachers’ everyday lives,” Usec. Mateo said.

Partnering for pre-service teacher education
Teacher Education Council (TEC) Secretariat Executive Director Dr. Runvi Manguerra, in his presentation called ‘The Beginning Teacher Indicators of the PPST as TEI outcomes” touched on the TEC-RCTQ partnerships for teacher quality.

Teacher Education Council (TEC) Secretariat Executive Director Dr. Runvi Manguerra

“TEC, in partnership with RCTQ, used research-based data to find out how to best assist TEIs in aligning their pre-service teacher education curriculum and training to the PPST. Findings from the conduct of the Outcome-based Pre-service Teacher Education Program: Curriculum Quality Audit (CQA) in 2016-2017 resulted in a number of TEC-RCTQ partnership projects for pre-service teacher education,” Dr. Manguerra said.

In a separate plenary session, RCTQ Director Dr. Gina Gonong talked about the PPST as a benchmark for teacher quality.

Other Day 2 speakers were DepEd 4A Regional Director Wilfredo Cabral who, as DepEd-NCR Regional Director in 2019, forged a partnership with PNU and RCTQ for the regional pilot of NEAP transformation; and CHED Commissioner Aldrin Darilag, who has been working with the TWG-TQ representing CHED.

The Summit—which gathered university and campus officials, faculty members, administrative staff, and selected student leaders from five PNU campuses—aimed to situate the university vis-a-vis the expectations of the PPST and other international teacher quality standards in terms of curriculum, teacher training and practices.

OPEN FORUM (L-R): Undersecretary Mateo, Dr. Gonong, Dr. Manguerra, Comm. Darilag, and RD Cabral

 

Summit participants

AdminNewsSulong EduKalidad,Teacher Quality
RCTQ's current partnerships with the Office of the Cabinet Secretary (OCS) and various offices of the Department of the Education (DepEd) were highlighted on Day 2 of the Philippine Normal University (PNU) Teacher Quality and Quality Assurance Summit on 28 January 2020 in Baguio City.   Advancing Teacher Quality Across Agencies In...