PASIG CITY, February 3, 2019 – The Department of Education (DepEd), Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA), and the Peace Corps (PC) recently renewed partnership for sustainable education programs through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed at the Office of the Secretary Conference Room, DepEd Central Office in December.

The cooperation seeks to provide opportunities for educators, students, learners, and community members to gain access to personal, professional, and academic opportunities through literacy education in English.

Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones conveyed her gratitude to the Peace Corps for renewing partnership with DepEd: “We hope and look forward that the Peace Corps will respond to the programs and priorities of DepEd. We expect that it will be a useful partnership with significant role in the region as well as to the rest of the world.”

Briones likewise stressed that the Alternative Learning System (ALS) is currently the main focus of DepEd, including the curriculum, and urged the PC to address these challenges: “We hope you will even more take interest in our ALS because this is what we are giving more attention to: our curriculum, the kinds of textbooks, the teaching aids and materials that we write, the content, and the strengthening of our ways of thinking.”

Under the Terms of Reference (TOR), the PC shall deploy Education Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) to co-teach with Filipino teacher-counterparts and share responsibility in planning class programs, and in actual classroom. The PCVs will also work with ALS implementers in the Community Learning Center to design, develop, and implement ALS literacy programs and activities for the identified learners; and design and conduct training programs for ALS implementers.

Meanwhile, DepEd’s regional offices shall identify a PC regional coordinator as point of contact, and facilitate communication among DepEd, the division office, and local schools on volunteer activities and accomplishments. The division office shall also recommend suitable local schools for volunteer placement; provide volunteer-teacher’s school uniform; and facilitate practicum school identification, and school field trip visits as part of the pre-service training of volunteers.

The role of the local school with PCVs include housing identification; smooth and efficient integration of the volunteer in the school community; assigning of teacher-counterparts; monitoring of volunteer’s work performance; providing guidance and support to the volunteer in the development and implementation of school-community projects and activities; and ensure appropriate DepEd contribution to PCV.

Also present in the event were DepEd Undersecretary Lorna Dig Dino, OIC-Assistant Secretary Fiel Abcede, International Cooperation Office Director Margarita Consolacion Ballesteros, PNVSCA Executive Director Joselito De Jesus, PC Country Director Monica Collier, PC Programming and Training Director Wendy Slee, and PC Response Coordinator Milo Cruz.

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