The quest for teacher excellence

When the SMP (service management program) Teachers Camp opened last May 2, Prof. Joel Bawica of Laguna State Polytechnic University (LSPU) remarked that he felt a combination of nervousness and pride: nervousness because he and his peers would be wrestling with new and unfamiliar content, and pride because his institution would be one of the first state universities and colleges to participate in a project that aims to align higher education goals with the competencies demanded by the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry.

For the past three weeks, the LSPU faculty together with instructors and professors of Cavite State University (Cavsu) led by Dr. Roderick Rupido and Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) led by Dr. Teresita Atienza and Henry Prudente waded through the content and recommended teaching strategies for the four domains of the service management specialization track: namely, business communication, principles of systems thinking, fundamentals of the business process management industry, and service culture.

Del Calub, training manager for Asia Pacific College, deftly orchestrated the daily sessions conducted by the young but very competent master trainers from Aegis Philippines—Jackie Gulrajani, Richard Ngo, Neil Norman Littaua, Deng and Mike Lopez, Stephen Genotiva, and their team leader Olive Ybañez.

Likewise, Orly Agawin infused the sessions with advanced English preemployment training concepts while Hector Atendido of Edulynx strengthened communication fundamentals with basic English skills training.

The SMP Teachers Camp evolved, as it should, into a learning experience on what it takes to foster teacher excellence for everyone involved, including the project delivery team of the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (Ibpap) led by Jopat Lelay and Ella Antonio.

In fact, teacher excellence is a key point in the global education reform agenda. A New York Times opinion piece, appropriately titled “In Search of Excellent Teaching,”  says that a critical point in evaluating a teacher’s effectiveness is student achievement.

“Indeed, there are now evaluation systems that take student achievement into account in various ways. These systems are still in their formative stages, but at their best, these evaluation systems are based on the idea that teaching is difficult to master and that high performers tend to get that way through intensive feedback and help from colleagues,” the article points out.

Comprehensive training programs like the SMP Teachers Camp are groundbreaking because they are tailored for a university environment and, at the same time, grounded in industry realities. This is the correct strategic approach to strengthening the public value of higher education institutions vis à vis pressures from global markets.

In her paper on the basic education sector reform agenda and higher education reform, Dr. Ma. Serena Diokno, the noted historian, said the “internationalization process” that higher education institutions are now witnessing is diminishing the hold of higher education over postsecondary learning and the creation of knowledge. Diokno added: “Global credentials for the practice of professions in information technology and human resources training are making college degrees unnecessary. Microsoft exams for its various software, for instance, yield credentials that are recognized worldwide.”

Diokno further warned that the intensified tension among the values of quality, equity and market has a far-reaching impact on the purpose of higher education and how universities are managed.

By quality, Diokno meant the value “that is tethered on merit, that upholds knowledge—not profit—as the university’s enduring purpose, and excellence and integrity as its overriding principles.” By equity, she meant “the belief that education is a public good essential to the individual and the larger society.”

Diokno emphasized that higher education today is conscious of the imperative to produce knowledge and help find solutions to social and global problems. She added, however, that there is a view that treats higher education as a commodity to be traded rather than as a source of learning and public good. “The view has mutated, but the end result is an overemphasis on the instrumental function of education—a means to a job—at the expense of the larger purpose of human and social development.”

This is the challenge that the newly trained faculty at the SMP Teachers Camp will face when they rejoin their respective higher education institutions: With the knowledge they have acquired, they now have the means and motivation to lead their students toward fulfilling careers that affirm their humanity.

The Ibpap embarked on this partnership with the Commission on Higher Education because it wanted to do all it can to help teachers meet this challenge squarely—and prevail.

So stand and be recognized, dear educators from Cavsu, LSPU and PUP. We wish you all the best, and rest assured that we in the IT-BPM industry will be with you every step of the way. We are taking our cue from Bawica, who verbalized a sentiment that was in the mind of every participant at the SMP Teachers Camp: “Being a teacher is not an easy job.”

Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation and the education lead for talent development at the Ibpap.