Bridging the education gap

MANILA, Philippines - As a culmination of its three-year educator training program, HSBC recognized five outstanding principals who have effectively transformed their elementary schools through the HSBC Principals Leadership Enhancement and Development Program (PLP).

The five principals were chosen from among PLP participants who joined in a series of conferences that tackled leadership, management, professional development and human resource issues.

HSBC president and CEO Tony Cripps said the principals “displayed exemplary leadership and have shown how they can be effective CEOs of their schools in accordance with the best-practice strategies learned from the PLP conference.”

The five honorees are Zenaida Penafuerte of Rizal Elementary School; Marilyn Macalma of Cembo Elementary School; Elita Lopez of Comembo Elementary School; Marciana de Guzman of Nangka Elementary School; and Aurora Marcelino of P. Manalo Elementary School.

The HSBC PLP is an undertaking in partnership with Sa Aklat Sisikat (SAS) Foundation, a non-government organization focused on bridging the education gap in the Philippines. Founded by Lizzie Zobel and Margarita Delgado in 2001, SAS initially promoted functional literacy and progressive teacher training in collaboration with the Department of Education.

In 2009, SAS and HSBC launched PLP in response to Republic Act 9155 that gave principals full authority and responsibility for the effective management of their schools. The program helps principals identify the needs and problems of their schools and community, and equips them to revise the standard curriculum to address these.

 “We believe that as captains of our educational system, principals should be provided proper resources so they will be able to steer their schools towards becoming innovative learning communities,” says Zobel.

In three years, PLP has trained 200 principals from schools all over the Philippines. It was also through the program that the Principal’s Handbook was developed by SAS and distributed nationwide.

As the PLP conference series draws to a close, HSBC and SAS are bracing for yet another undertaking.

The Teach for the Philippines (TFP) program is a new program of SAS that will help address the scale and magnitude of the crisis in education in the country by recruiting and training top students from universities and then fielding them in public schools.

HSBC is donating P3 million to TFP — P1 million from local fund and P2 million through a grant awarded by the HSBC Global Education Program.

“Our programs with SAS illustrate an effective and sustainable partnership,” says Cripps. “Our programs have continuously evolved – starting with reading programs for students then moving towards educator training and now our aim is to train students to become teachers.”