Philippines Muslim and Indigenous Peoples Education Programme

Project Background:

The Australia-Philippines Development Strategy highlights the goal of improving the quality of basic education and increasing the children’s access to it. Through the Muslim and Indigenous Peoples’ Education Programme, technical assistance is provided to assist the Philippine Department of Education to provide better access to an appropriate, policy driven, sustainable and culturally relevant basic education for boys and girls in disadvantaged Muslim and Indigenous People communities. The program contains interventions such as curriculum enhancement, teachers’ skills upgrading, higher level education standards and increased access for remote communities will result in improved participation, enrolment, completion and literacy.

Objectives:      

The programme’s objectives are:

• to improve the quality of basic education
• to increase access to quality basic education by Muslim and indigenous children
• to provide support to the Philippine Department of Education in building their capacity to identify specific needs of remote and disadvantaged communities and to address these needs.

a) Component 1: Indigenous Peoples’ Education Supporting the Demand Side. The objective is to attract IPs and Muslim children to school and keep them in school.    

(b) Component 2: Madrasah Education Supporting the Supply Side. The objective is to enable DepED to address access and quality issues in basic education in disadvantaged IPs and Muslim communities.    

(c) Component 3: Management of and monitoring of capacity building for the DepED GoP Management and Monitoring Capacity Building Support. The objective is to support DepED at all levels to enable it to efficiently and effectively manage the Programme and other initiatives that seek to improve the delivery of basic education services to disadvantaged IPs and Muslim groups.

Activities:

• Establish Muslim and Indigenous Peoples’ education advocacy programme;
• Develop School Improvement Plans and financial assistance for implementation;
• Build the capacity of DepEd staff in the region, division and schools to be able to identify the needs of their communities;
• Develop and implement IPs education policies, strategies and plans;
• Develop, produce and distribute teacher guides and learning materials in IPs education and Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE);
• Deliver pre-service and in-service teacher training for IPs education and ALIVE;
• Design and deliver alternative learning programs for out-of-school Muslim and IPs youth and other disadvantaged groups;
• Establish IPs centres in the regions and community centre networks;
• Assist the Madaris to obtain DepED recognition and accreditation; and
• Establish reliable baseline information on IP and Muslim communities in the target areas.

GOPA Consultants provides short term expertise to support the implementation of the programme.