ANY news about education is interesting for me. It is one of the basic advocacies of my weekly column.
I read this news in The Scribe's Corner of Lorenzo Mendoza. The new DepEd (Department of Education) Secretary Leonor Briones reiterated her goal as secretary, she would vigorously push for the implementation of Alternative Learning System (ALS) to bring education to more learners across the country.
She intends to expedite the programmed expenditures from the 2017 budget to address the needs of the Department to provide excellent services to its clienteles, the learners.
Secretary Briones emphasized that President Duterte also believes that ALS would be a potent vehicle for a number of out of school adults just rooming around the corners of houses, villages, and the hinterlands to achieve their dreams and ambitions in life. The secretary, herself, is the product of informal basic education during World War 2.
The Secretary said that a person can be educated in a non-traditional way. The Dep Ed had not invented ALS then but her own experience proved that one can get educated without formal schooling. ALS is a kind of education delivered in a non- formal setting.
Learning places can be a covered court, a Barangay hall, church yards or any other common area in the community where the learners live. ALS is open to all learners of different ages from beginners to adult levels. It does not discriminate against ages and maturity, gender, and ethnicity.
Graduates of ALS can get and pass Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) Test may get an elementary or high school diploma. They can proceed to Formal Schooling in college if they choose to do this.
I was fascinated by this story of the secretary's own experience. Her mother, a dedicated exemplary teacher would gather all idle children of families in the mountain villages. She said that her pupils were taught the 3 R's of basic learning. She called them pupils in the jungle atmosphere. The Secretary would attend classes at age 3.
Her mother did not allow the horrors of war to stop her ALS program to reach everyone. No one will be left behind. Formal school supply needs were not available in the mountain areas where they evacuated to escape the brutality of the Japanese invaders. The pupils used banana leaves with their natural lines as their writing pads and sharpened bamboo stalks as their improvised pen. How quaint! Indeed creativity is enhanced and invented when an urgent need demands it.
After the war, the kids were given the proficiency test to determine the grade equivalent of their accomplishment. The Secretary was given an equivalent proficiency for grade 2 and she was not even enrolled yet.
The ALS gets teachers who have college degrees to meet the needs of the students. They give the chances for the students to improve the dignity of the masses as they learn the rudiments of good behavior and right conduct also. The teachers get their fair compensation for their work. All students who can afford, pay their tuition fees. Those who cannot afford to pay are given special scholarships.
As was said, no one among the people is left. The teachers have reasonable salaries to meet the demands of a highly specialized ALS job. There are mobile ALS teachers who go to far flung hinterlands where they are needed. They teach the main thrust in increasing the people's awareness in promoting social development and concerns in government.
Without knowing it, as an educator for 45 years of my life, I was practicing my own style of ALS. My students do not fail to commend me in the yearly evaluation reports of my students that I teach outside the confines of the four walls of our classroom. We were most often in an educational field trip. We rode the school bus and bring our own food for a day's trip. Orientation on what is to be learned in our trip is done.
Record books and pens or pencils and even instruments as long wooden rulers, microscope, hand lens, bottles with covers are carried by the class. One exciting field trip was experienced when we made the high Santo Tomas peak trip to study flora n fauna and atmospheric conditions in the mountain peak. What discoveries and wonders were learned. The students dug fossils of crustaceans, mollusks and even imprints of ancient plants on some flat rocks. The students had to investigate on how were these possible.
Was Baguio under water eons ago? Did the environment emerged or became submerged? There were dewdrops on the plant's leaves the whole day. It was so cold.
Other interesting trips were made in visiting the oceans in La Union, Ilocos and in a pond. Flora and fauna were collected and the lecture was held at the shores. After this all specimens were returned to their habitat. I allowed some to be collected in the bottles to supply our laboratory with specimens tor taxonomy or naming living things.
Also here we studied the high and low tides using the measuring sticks. We collected sea urchins and get the eggs from their ovaries on microscope slides. We studied how the eggs divide into 2, 4, 8 etc. Until the sea urchin babies are formed.
Another interesting visit was our field trip to the Jesuits convent observatory where we studied the sunspots. We visited weather bureaus and earthquake detection centers. So much were learned from my own version of my ALS.
I hope Secretary Briones will be successful in her ALS to bring education to the greatest numbers of learners and prove that learning can be achieved without formal education.
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