Partnering for Project Sustainability

SBFI believes that improving the academic performance of students does not only rely on better learning facilities. Thus, when SBFI started The Classrooms Project in 2011, it partnered with Ateneo De Manila University to design programs for the continuous training and development of teachers assigned to the beneficiary schools. In 2014, SBFI also partnered with De La Salle Philippines (DLSP) to extend the teachers’ training and development program. Since 2014, SBFI had already trained 702 teachers from The Classrooms Project’s beneficiary schools.

SBFI’s partnership with Ateneo is through the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED). The future of the country really depends on children in public schools as 90 percent of children in the Philippines go to public schools, according to Father Bienvenido Nebres, who is be- hind the establishment of ACED.

The partnership of SBFI and ACED focuses on teachers’ training particularly in English and Mathematics subjects. “When we started doing the project with SBFI, we already had a sense of what the public schools needed,” said Dr. Carmela Oracion, managing director of ACED.

Oracion said teachers in public schools are excellent teachers but limited access to resources and technology has made teaching extra challenging for them. Challenges faced by public school teachers include teaching a big number of students per class and insufficient instructional materials. To deal with these problems, teachers who underwent ACED training learned to use teaching strategies that utilize improvised materials.

Through One La Salle Educational Foundation, Inc. (OLEF), DLSP has been training the teachers of SBFI’s beneficiary schools in Science and Araling Panlipunan subjects.

A total of 100 teachers from beneficiary schools in Luzon underwent teachers’ training with OLEF, which was piloted in 2017. The training included lessons about new ways of dealing with students inside the classroom. They were also trained to acquire knowledge and skills on active learning strategies, collaborative learning and effective teaching strategies when handling big number of students.

The teachers who underwent training with OLEF have become friends with their trainers, with some of them exchanging feedback on how they implement the new teaching strategies in their own classes, according to Raymond Endriga, De La Salle Canlubang Integrated School associate principal for grade school and a mentor in Science during the teacher training.

Brother Armin Luistro, FSC (De La Salle Philippines)“I have learned to appreciate Security Bank Foundation’s commitment to education even when I was still in DepED. After a major earthquake in Bohol and the devastation brought by ST Yolanda, they were among the first to heed the call to bring schools back to normalcy by participating in DepED’s rehabilitation efforts. Throughout, I am most appreciative that their programs include not only the construction of school buildings but more importantly teacher-training and development which is truly the heart of education.”

Brother Jose Mari Jimenez, FSC (One La Salle Educational Foundation, Inc.)“I am quite happy with the fruits of OLEF’s partnership with Security Bank Foundation. As a Lasallian institution, our mission is to make quality education accessible. Working with Security Bank Foundation has enabled us to expand the work that we do by providing us a channel to share our expertise with co-teachers in the public sector.”

Dr. Carmela Oracion (Ateneo De Manila University)“Security Bank Foundation is an important partner. The desire of the Bank to build classrooms in many schools is very relevant and meaningful. They build nice and good classrooms and I think that is important insofar as raising the morale of the teachers and students in public schools.”

Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J. (Ateneo De Manila University)“To build our country, deliberate, concrete and sustainable steps have to be taken to improve the public schools where the majority of our Filipino youth are being educated.”