Angara takes aim at education reforms

EDUCATION Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara on Tuesday met with two organizations in efforts to resolve basic education challenges and to strengthen election education and values formation initiatives for Filipino learners. Angara sat with officials of the World Bank Philippines led by its country director for the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, Brunei Zafar Mustafaoglu, and Regional Director for Human Development Alberto Rodriguez. He discussed the digitalization of the Department of Education (DepEd) to address the learning resources gap in the basic education system. Also, Angara and the World Bank officials discussed early childhood development and the DepEd's plan to decentralize the implementation of various education programs so that more learners will benefit from it. The Education secretary also met with the members of The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service (TOWNS) Foundation to discuss a possible partnership to strengthen election education and values formation initiatives for Filipino learners. In a statement, the DepEd said that TOWNS wants to share with learners their materials on values education to teach students the importance of good governance, including the values of being magalang (respectful), matapat (honest), masipag (industrious), matulungin (helpful), makabayan (patriotic), and mapanuri (critical). Angara supported the idea of tapping digital resources in crafting voters' education and values formation advocacy materials. Representing TOWNS were lawyer Patricia-Ann Prodigalidad and Evelyn Singson of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting.