Context: In the Philippines, the K to 12 is an education system under the Department of Education with the objective of enhancing learners’ basic skills, producing more competent citizens and preparing graduates for lifelong learning and employment. It replaces the previous system of 10 years of basic education with 12 years and is particularly important given that the Philippines has over 30 per cent of its population under the age of 15.
The BPI Foundation Inc. (BPIFI), the Department of Education (DepEd), and YGOAL Inc. have initiated programmes that are aligned with the goals of the Republic Act 10533 (K to 12), known as the enhanced basic education curriculum and Republic Act 10922 known as the Economic and Financial Literacy Act. BPI SHAPE aims to boost the competencies of senior high school (SHS) students to be able to work, start a business, or go to college through a Values-Driven and Skills Development Entrepreneurship and Financial Management Program.
Implementation of programme/ initiative: BPI SHAPE has four programme components. First are the teaching modules for entrepreneurship and personal development. These modules were validated by the participating DepEd Divisions to ensure that they are aligned with DepEd’s SHS curriculum.
Second is the capacity building for teachers who are trained on how to use the modules and the digital professional sessions. Supplemental videos have been developed based on Jobstreet’s research on employee competencies and the Philippines’ career landscape.
Third is the technology. An online repository of resource materials that support the modules was developed to enable teachers to use them online and offline. To support student work immersion, YGOAL has developed Internship Philippines, which serves as an online matching facility between school and companies for work immersion.
Fourth is partnership. An ecosystem of support with DepEd Division partners helps in the success of the programme. The programme offers schools social mobilization sessions to enhance competencies in building relationships with the private sector. In this context, BPI SHAPE mobilizes the private sector to work with DepEd through Internship Talks and the Private Sector Summit.
The programme culminates with the Business and Academic Fair where all stakeholders gather for a day of job matching, school partnership, entrepreneurial sessions, and other sessions that enhance the support system after the two-year intervention.
Main challenges: There are two main challenges with the programme:
First, is ensuring that private sector continues to participate both at the local and national level in providing work immersion and employment opportunities for senior high school students.
Second, since this is an initiative of a private sector, the goal is that local DepEd and the local government unit should be able to sustain the model after the two-year intervention provided by the private companies such as BPIFI.
Results achieved: The programme has been able to pilot run the intervention for the first cohort of senior high schools with three schools in DepEd Division of Taguig and Pateros and two schools in the DepEd Division of Laguna. A total of 2,000 students have benefitted from the programme. The capacity of the teachers teaching entrepreneurship and personal development has been significantly increase, while schools have been matched to 11 companies both in Taguig City and Laguna.
Moving Forward: This school year (2018-2019) marks the programme’s expansion to 12 DepEd Divisions nationwide, targeting 204 schools, over 800 teachers and around 22,000 students. The overall goal is to establish a full SHAPE model in each region and work with Regional DepEd to train and accredit trainers as part of the exit and sustainability plan. As part of upscaling change, YGOAL has integrated its efforts with the Asean Youth Community (AYC) in co-designing the AseanReady module, repurposing the training module on entrepreneurship and personal development, together with the experience in building an ecosystem between the private and public sectors from the BPI-SHAPE programme on a regional scale.
Replicability: DepEd Divisions which are programme recipients have committed to continue the model and the use of the entrepreneurship and personal development modules as resource for their teachers; this form of buy-in is essential for success. Another key to the success of the programme is solid partnership between private and public organizations and an intervention driven by a government policy, such as in this case RA 10533 and RA 10922.
References
http://manilastandardtoday.com/lgu/265321/deped-bank-team-up-for-bpi-shape-for-hs-seniors.html
https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/business-world/20170921/282480003974053
Project Details
Date: September 3, 2018