Bringing collaboration to education
IN our serious moments, when we are not absorbed by discussion about politics and the bane that political positioning for power brings about, many of us agree about the strategic importance of education. We need to keep moving up and improving significantly in this area. It is very important for our longterm strategic future.
But while most of us agree, we need to specify and act upon programs that will make education work effectively and positively for our long-term future. Among these programs are those associated with collaboration.
Anna Patricia Fernandez specifies two broad areas of collaboration.
The first relates to other sectors collaborating with schools, with the view of raising the standards of instruction and over-all formation that our schools can provide.
• Professionals, with a good track record, and with special competence, should be encouraged to “volunteer to provide more up-to-date and extensive information from their field of specialization.” This program has to be run professionally and effectively so that students in our schools get real-life experience, and learn from a proper exposure to it. Such volunteer services should not be made available only to students; they have to be accessible on the part of teachers as well, so these can become “more competent and better equipped.” Moreover, they can be helped “to gain more up-to-date and more specific understanding of various sectors and industries” that the volunteers can share their useful experience about.
• Special focus can be given to students with special talents and interests, and most especially those with “aspiration for careers focused on shaping our country and society.” In particular, those with a deep interest in careers related to education, mathematics and the natural sciences, and some of the social sciences should be provided with every opportunity and facility to “improve their skills, deepen their knowledge, and broaden their exposure.” In addition, their teachers should be helped , including financially, in pursuing their advanced degrees (even obtaining a Ph.D.). All these “need not be too heavy on the pocket; through pooling of resources from a group of friends, co-workers, and even other members of the family,” the needed resources can be more easily raised and provided.
• Companies, through their social responsibility programs, “can open their doors to host schools, whose students can be made to learn more about business or some specific field of interest. Field trips by students in
schools should be facilitated and even sponsored.”
The second makes collaboration a two-way street. Schools, particularly colleges and universities in cities, provinces, and regions, can serve as centers for active, strategic collaboration between various sectors of society --- i.e., business, civil society, and government --- so that together they can work effectively for the sustained, integrated development of an entire area or region. Schools can provide effective services for substantiating collaboration of all members of a multi-sector governance coalition for the local communities they serve.