RCTQ Director discusses challenges, opportunities in teacher education at BARMM higher education meeting
Main photo credit: MBHTE Facebook page
RCTQ Director Dr. Gina Gonong was one of the resource speakers at the Higher Education Management Committee Meeting of the Bangsamoro Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) in Cotabato City on 17 February 2021. She was invited by Marjuni M. Maddi, MBHTE Director General for Higher Education.
Dr. Gonong tackled the global challenges in teacher and teacher education before discussing the challenges in the Philippines including how “many national and international assessments reflect our collective failure to help our learners and our teachers.”
She discussed how the reform bills that seek to strengthen the Teacher Education Council (TEC)—currently being consolidated at the Senate and House of Representatives—present a promising prospect for teacher education.
In terms of opportunities, Dr. Gonong said that the findings from the mapping study of teacher education institutions (TEIs) serving the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao which RCTQ is conducting with Australia-assisted Education Pathways to Peace (Pathways) program “will provide baseline information on teacher education in the region in terms of programs offered, nature of support provided to TEIs, and their existing governance structures, among others.”
She also discussed how the MBHTE can benefit from aligning its teacher education curriculum with the internationally-benchmarked and nationally-validated Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) which “defines what pre- and in-service teachers are expected to know, to be able to do and value in their profession across their careers”.
Mr. Maddi said Dr. Gonong’s talk was very useful as the MBHTE “reconfigures and improves the services of its seven (7) directly-supervised higher education institutions”.
Dr. Luningning Umar, former CHED- ARMM Commissioner and higher education consultant who attended the ManCom meeting said that “the input of Dr. Gina Gonong is very timely,” while acknowledging that the MBHTE “has a long way to go”.
On 9 December 2020, Dr. Gonong participated in a public consultation for the draft Bangsamoro Education Code and submitted a position paper after being requested by Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal of the Bangsomoro Ministry of Basic, Technical, and Higher Education (MBTHE) to comment on the proposed legislation.
The proposed Bangsamoro Education Code of 2020 or Bangsamoro Transition Authority’s Parliament Bill No. 70 is “an act providing for the establishment, maintenance, and support of a complete and integrated system of quality education in the Bangsamoro”. It is one of the six priority legislations of the BTA, the interim regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
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