Questions/Answers

The objective of the initiative is to bring quality and affordable public college education to all the youth in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, especially those belonging to the vulnerable sectors, the poor farming families in the countryside including the indigenous people. Under the guidance of the provincial government of Zamboanga del Sur and supervision of the J.H. Cerilles State College (JHCSC) management board, which served as partners of this initiative, the 26 tertiary community schools have since been established and run in all the localities of the province. They address the educational needs of the students that could hardly afford the cost of private education, as well as the cost of transportation and board and lodging entailed in living in the urban centers wherein the private schools are usually present. Because of this initiative, thousands of vulnerable youths are given access to education and the chance to graduate in college, in order to get a decent job and eventually uplift themselves from poverty. Since the start of this initiative in 2005, around 19,000 students have already graduated from JHCSC, benefitting from quality and affordable public college education that this initiative brings.

The initiative is about delivering an innovative, inclusive and equitable service in the education sector that leaves no one behind. The initiative introduces an idea, policy, practice and structure that is distinctively novel in order to reach out those who are left behind -- the youths belonging to the vulnerable sectors, the poor farming families in the countryside including the indigenous people. It brings quality tertiary education at their doorstep so that they may easily get access to it and eventually become professionals. By educating the vulnerable youths, they can become contributors to poverty alleviation and nation building.

In pursuit of the sustainable development goal to provide inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels, the initiative has the following contributions in implementing the 2030 Agenda. Firstly, it helps to ensure equal access for all men and women to affordable and quality tertiary education. Secondly, it helps to increase the number of youths and adults who have relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. Thirdly, it helps to expand the number of scholarship grants available to the vulnerable youths. Lastly, it helps to increase the number of qualified teachers thru continuing education and international cooperation.

The initiative has impacted to the youths that otherwise could have not afford the cost of college education. These are the youths who belong to the poor farming families in the countryside that also include the indigenous people. The low income of their family is not enough to pay for the cost of private education, as well as the cost of transportation and board and lodging entailed in living in the urban centers wherein private colleges are usually found. By bringing public education right in their own localities, they were able to pursue college education and graduate eventually. Since the start of the initiative, the enrollment rate of JHCSC has increased to an average of 700% per year, and its number of graduates has increased to an average of 1000 per year. Since the youth dropouts in the countryside are prone to recruitment to extremist groups, either communist guerillas or Moro secessionist rebels, providing them education in a way helps promote peace and security. Educating them in school keeps them away from extremist recruitment. This is in addition to the fact that being college graduates paves the way for them to become active contributors to poverty alleviation and nation building.

The initiative is innovative because it is the first and only initiative in the Philippines, if not in Asia, in which tertiary public education is expanded in every locality of a province. All municipalities has one school site of JHCSC wherein quality, equitable and affordable education is provided especially to the vulnerable youths. Through the collaborative partnership of the provincial government, the JHCSC management board, as well as the municipal governments, this innovative initiative has been successfully implemented.

Although community schools for elementary and high school students have been found in far-flung areas in the Philippines since 1950’s, it is the first time that tertiary public education is introduced in every municipality of a province. It is borne out of the realization of the provincial government leaders that the educational needs of the vulnerable youths in the countryside were not met by the private tertiary education often found in the urban centers. Not addressing these needs would imply problems in the local economy and peace and order, as stated above. Thus, this innovative initiative was originally introduced.

To our knowledge, this initiative has been somehow adapted in other municipalities in Mindanao, Philippines. However, the similar initiatives are not done in partnership agreement with a local government. They are often initiated by a public tertiary institution and are only limited to one to two schools per province. Moreover, they may cater to the need for affordable higher education for the youths in the area, but they are not designed as well in addressing problems on peace and security and keeping away the vulnerable rural youths from extremist influence.

To implement the initiative, the project partners have shared their resources according to their capacity and role. As lead proponent, the provincial government shared its political influence as administrative overseer of all municipal governments within its jurisdiction, enabling all of them to cooperate. Meanwhile, the JHCSC provides the academic management including the hiring of faculty and staff, while the municipal governments provide operational funds and school sites. However, the national government has recently implemented the free tertiary education law making it favorable for the sustainability of the initiative.

Aside from being operationally sustainable due to the shared resources being committed to it, this initiative is also sustainable by design. Firstly, it is socially sustainable, because it does not simply cater to the needs of its current youth beneficiaries. It also has the vision of supporting the ability of the future generations to maintain a healthy and livable communities by educating their future leaders. With Teacher Education as one of its flagship programs, education of future leaders is assured. Secondly, with Agriculture being the other mandated program of the institution, the initiative is considered to be environmentally sustainable through offering organic agriculture. Resources are managed in a manner that they will not be depleted and will remain available in the future generations. Lastly, it is economically sustainable as sustainability is assured by equipping a well-educated workforce, which is an essential element for a sustainable economic growth.

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Yes, it underwent an internal evaluation commissioned by the provincial government before the start of the classes in the current academic year. Guided by the objectives of the evaluation, the evaluation team relied on a participatory evaluation framework that utilized four inter-related and complementary evaluation tools used to gather information from different sources regarding the performance of the initiative. These tools essentially included documents review, semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, focus group discussions with teachers, parents, students, and alumni as well as a final validation workshop.

To measure the success of the initiative, indicators on education, employment, peace and order, and poverty alleviation are used. For its educational purpose, the number of academic degree holders and the increase of literacy rate are used as indicators. For its impact on employment, the increase number of employed individuals and employment rate are used. For its impact on peace and order, reduction of crime index, increase of business establishments, and law enforcers’ recognition of a peaceful province are used. For poverty alleviation, decrease of poverty incidence, decreased of income gap and decrease in the severity of poverty are used.

Overall, the evaluation found the initiative to be successfully impactful. For its purpose, it has 19.3% increase in the number of academic holders and 2.2% increase in literacy rate. For its goals, it has 1.87% increase in the number of employed individuals, which is around 7,000 individuals only in a period of four years. Secondly, it has reduced the crime index by 69.7%, and the law enforcement agencies declared the province as “peaceful and ready for development.” Lastly, the initiative has decreased poverty incidence by 7.3%, decreased the income gap by 2.7%, and decrease the severity of poverty by 9%.

The key stakeholders are all actively engaged in this initiative, such as: the provincial government provides guidance as to the overall direction of this initiative through consultations, and, it also rallied all the municipal governments under its jurisdiction as administrative overseer to provide financial and material support to the initiative; the JHCSC board of trustees approves and monitors the strategic and annual plans of the initiative; the JHCSC management board, in behalf of the BOT, ensures the JHCSC system is operating effective and efficiently, provides strategic guidance to the community schools, and oversees all aspects of the schools, including accounting, budgeting and expenditures; the administrative body of each community school oversees the day-to-day functions of the school and provides instructional leadership, guidance and direction to the faculty and staff; the faculty and staff fulfill teaching obligations and provide staff support, respectively; the parents teachers associations articulate the parents’ point of view on how to improve the school and its services , as well as raise funds for the benefit of the school; and, lastly, the student bodies articulate the interests and views of the students and lead in organizing and carrying out extra-curricular activities.

Based on internal evaluation, the following are the lessons learned: strong political influence is a primary factor in the expansion of public tertiary community schools in a provincial territory; opening community schools in the locality necessitates support in the beginning from the municipal government that can provide funding and material support; since the support from the municipal government is dependent on the changing political climate, it is necessary to ensure a legislated national subsidy and an active Parents-Teachers Association, capable to raise funds, so that sustainability of funding for the schools is assured even if the municipal support stops.