Spain to expand assistance to poor schools

ZAMBOANGA SIBUGAY , Philippines  – The Spanish government has provided scholarships to 5,100 elementary and high school students here, completing a three-year education program in Mindanao.

The Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID) also built 30 new classrooms in 13 schools, provided 7,250 armchairs and 5,677 books. Fifteen audio-visual rooms, four laboratories and four technology and livelihood workshops were also established. In-school feeding and parent-teacher-community association trainings were also conducted.

“The Spanish support is a holistic program that addressed both the problem of poor access to basic education among children in Mindanao, and the need to improve the quality of education,” explained Paul Dominguez, director of Saranggani Agricultural Co. and vice chairman of the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), which implemented the program on behalf of AECID and the Spanish NGO Fundacion Humanismo y Democracia (H+D).

DepEd data show that in this province, only four out of 10 children of official school age were enrolled during school year 2006-2007.

Poverty keeps children out of school. Cely Baid, who teaches at Gugawang Bugas Elementary School, explained: “At first, children stop temporarily, but some children later decide not to go to school anymore because of the urgent need to help the family.”

“However, I observed most of them would come back during enrolment in June. The construction of a new school building here also encouraged them to go back to school because it’s nearer,” Baid added.

“The enrolment rates in our assisted schools have increased to as much as 29 percent,” explained Gil Salazar, PBSP executive director. “Dropout rates also declined, meaning, the children were encouraged to stay in school. When we implement education programs, our goal is to improve the performance of the students and the schools, and we were happy to receive reports from the schools that the NAT (National Achievement Test) scores increased by an average of seven percentage points.”

The Spanish donors will expand their assistance and include the city of Zamboanga, Agusan del Norte in CARAGA, and the typhoon-ravaged areas of Bicol through a new four-year development initiative. PBSP has been tapped to continue to implement these programs.

“High incidence of poverty and poor access to basic services are the major issues that will be addressed in the expansion sites,” Salazar explained.

“PBSP will continue to work with the DepEd and the school district heads. We also have strong links with the LGUs and our distinct focus is the capacity-building of parents and teachers.

Community participation, we have seen in many sites, is a key in making our children gain the most from education,” Salazar emphasized.