“THE PHILIPPINES will not move forward because of UP, Ateneo or La Salle. It is going to move forward at the pace of public schools,” said University President Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ during the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED)’s annual Christmas party held last December 11.

According to Nebres, Ateneo as an institution has to do something to solve the problems on education. ACED was created as a response to this need.

The Christmas party is an ACED tradition that started three years ago. The 2010 version of the party welcomed 1,800 public school teachers from ACED’s 16 partner schools.

The party featured a gift-giving session, as well as a recollection where international lay preacher Arun Gogna gave an inspirational talk.

Dependent on public schools

Assistant to the University President for Basic Education and Managing Director of ACED Carmela Oracion said that ACED aims to improve the performance of clusters of public schools through initiatives that are needs-based, community-owned, and outcomes-based.

According to Oracion, this becomes possible by engaging the various units of Ateneo, the Department of Education (both local and national levels), and the local government.

Oracion added, “ACED spearheads the University’s mission to close the poverty gap and improve quality of life through improving public basic education in scale.”

Nebres shares the same sentiments.

According to him, the context behind the conception of ACED was two-fold. Firstly was the sheer number of students attending public school. About 90 % of Filipino children go to public schools. “So very clearly, the future of the country will be very dependent on how public schools educate,” he said.

In addition, Nebres said that the enduring neglect of the public school system in the last 40 years was another critical circumstance. With key people in the country preferring to send their children to private schools, the dire situation of the country’s public schools is not typically seen by the country’s influential.

Nebres recognizes, however, that Ateneo alone cannot solve the problem as a whole. “It’s not the whole country but [our efforts are] big and we have tried to show that it is possible to work with the local government to improve public schools,” Nebres said.

ACED is currently connected to over 400 public elementary schools.

A big shift

During its first few years, ACED tried to assist public schools by harnessing academic contributions. Nebres said, “We did what everybody else does—we did teacher training, we did academic things. But in 2000, we said that we’ll change from here.”

Oracion said that teacher training alone is inadequate to help the public schools improve. It was this realization that prompted the mission of ACED to evolve.

Instead of supplying textbooks and teacher-training to a big pool of schools, ACED decided to select schools that had greater needs—Lupang Pangako, Payatas B, Payatas C and Bagong Silang.

The foremost needs of the public schools they chose were basic human necessities such as food. Classrooms and toilet numbers were also an issue.

According to Nebres this led to the shift in paradigm—from focusing on the supply side, to dwelling on the creation of an environment conducive to learning.

Engaging Ateneans

Nebres said that immersion on the baseline level is key to adequate understanding. As such, a number of Theology 141 students chose to do their immersion with ACED through the profiling activity.

Oracion said that this involved “gathering baseline data about a school and is always done by ACED at the start of the engagement with schools. This involves summarizing survey results, visiting the schools, interviewing the school principal, teachers, parents and students, as well as taking a look at the school facilities.”

According to Oracion, these reports are useful in assessing the issues and concerns of public schools. The Ateneo students, in turn, are given the opportunity to know the context of public schools and to contribute concretely to the development of a public school.

Nebres again stressed the need for the university to help out. “If all we will focus on at the Ateneo is to improve ourselves, we will just turn out to be a lonely center of excellence,” he said.