By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza / Exclusive to the BusinessMirror
Second of three parts
HER home is in the heart of Central Mindanao—in Tacurong City, the only city in the province of Sultan Kudarat; at the crossroads of the highways leading to Davao, General Santos and Cotabato.
Life here is dependent on agriculture; on simple, staple crops like rice and corn. Its major industry is rice milling.
As the daughter of rice farmers earning P500 a month, Prettybai D. Anok had no chance of going to senior high school (SHS) after she failed to qualify in the voucher program of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The voucher program, as explained in the DepEd web site, provides a subsidy that enables Grade 10 (junior high school) completers like Anok to claim a “discount” or a deduction from the cost of tuition and other fees that may be required in SHS.
It took a computer and a web site to reverse Anok’s fortune.
As narrated by Jay Torres Solitana, high-school engagement officer of Edukasyon.ph: “She searched for scholarships using our web site and was able to see the options for Megaworld Foundation. She is now enrolled as an Accountancy-Business and Management student in Tacurong National High School.”
A grateful Anok sends a thank you message to Solitana: “Maraming salamat sa Edukasyon.ph dahil nakahanap ako ng scholarship na makakatulong sakin para makapag-enroll ako ngayong taon. Nakatulong din ng malaki sa akin ’yung mga impormasyon na nakita ko sa web site para mapili ko ’yung track na kukuhanin ko. [Thank you to Edukasyon.ph because I was able to get a scholarship that would allow me to enroll this year. The information in their web site also helped a lot in helping me pick an education track].”
Digital distance
MORE than 1,300 kilometers separate Tacurong City from Manila, the country’s seat of power. Going by the Pan-Philippine Highway, land travel would translate to about 34 hours.
Upon arrival, a student from Tacurong will have to knock on the doors of public and private learning institutions to scout for a scholarship or some form of financial support to the needy high-school students desiring to go to college.
Virtual travel via the Internet has cut the time for searching, but one still has to go through the web sites of corporations, nonprofit institutions, colleges and universities to apply and, if fortunate, win a scholarship.
In the portal of Edukasyon.ph, a student searching for scholarships will find at any given time more than 2,800 scholarships from different organizations across the archipelago and from the organization’s partner countries abroad.
You can either search for the scholarships available at the school you are applying to, or for those available within the career you are considering.
Agri-fisheries
OTHER than lists of available scholarships, Edukasyon.ph also offers advice to students on the course that are most suited to them. This is done by way of tracks that range from four -year college courses to technical-vocational courses.
In the tech-voc course, there is the Agri-Fisheries-Arts strand. It focuses on agricultural farming, livestock raising and fundamentals of fisheries.
“It prepares the students to take part in attaining food security and sustainable economy,” Edukasyon.ph staff said.
SHS graduates who opt for the Agri-Fisheries-Arts strand are informed by Edukasyon.ph of the jobs available for them once they finish the course. A graduate can work as a horticulturist, farmer, canning worker, butcher, or animal husbandry expert.
Edukasyon.ph also points agri-fishery high-chool students to the possible businesses they can engage in once they complete their senior year. The options include fishpond owner/operator, rice thresher owner and small-scale food processing.
Should they want to pursue a four-year college course, the choices open to them are BS Fisheries, BS Agricultural Engineering, BS Agriculture in Animal Science, BS Agriculture in Crop Science Education and BS Veterinary Medicine.
Upon graduation from a four-year college course, the new professionals would work as researchers, agriculturists, animal husbandry experts and crop researchers.
Interactive
AS explained in the terms and conditions of the portal: Edukasyon.ph does not only provide relevant and useful information on scholarships, schools, training institutions and courses. It also offers ideas that will keep students informed, educated, and entertained.
“The founding concept of Edukasyon.ph is to give Filipino students all the information they need in order to choose the right program and school for them,” Edukasyon.ph CEO Lites Viloria said.
Viloria added that two years ago, Edukasyon.ph was looking at giving students all the information they need to make sound educational decisions that will lead to their chosen career. However, Edukasyon.ph saw that this was not enough.
“While giving them a plethora of choices is good, without curated, targeted and professional advice, there’s a very high likelihood that we may lose them,” Viloria said. “Edukasyon.ph has seen that, as an education online platform, it is actually in the best position to help solve the labor mismatch by giving students a comprehensive looks at where the choices they make now will lead them.”
This is why Edukasyon.ph, according to Viloria, has exerted majority of its efforts to shed light on all the issues hounding SHS. While a number of groups have openly criticized K to 12 specifically SHS, Edukasyon.ph talked about how SHS can truly help students find their niche in this ever evolving world.
The Edukasyon.ph web site, if you scroll down its “Find your Senior High School now!” will lead you to a listing of schools gathered by Edukasyon.ph. These include schools like the Philippine Women’s University, Lyceum of the Philippines in Manila, Saint Paul University in Dumaguete, University of the Cordilleras, Our Lady of Guadalupe Colleges, AMA University, Saint Scholastica’s College, Ateneo de Davao University, Cagayan de Oro College, Republican College, Saint Mary of the Woods School in Makati City, MFI Pasig, Ateneo de Manila University, Miriam College, De La Salle Health and Science Institute—more than 6,000 institutions to date.
As you browse further, the site will inform you of their data resources. For example, if you are browsing for scholarships, their web site will tell you “We found 577 schools that offers scholarships.” And you can filter your search by clicking on the boxes that say “full tuition,” “partial tuition” and “allowances.” There are also a “quick apply” and a “quick chat” boxes.
Origins
Edukasyon.ph is the brainchild of French-Filipino Henry Motte-Muñoz. Narrates Viloria: “The idea of Edukasyon.ph sprung when its Founder Motte-Muñoz spent his summer internship here in the country at the Ayala Group of Companies.”
“His cousin, who was about to enter college, asked for his advice on how to choose a university,” Villoria said. “During the conversation, he learned that his cousin was only choosing between University of the Philippines, Ateneo and La Salle, and the preference was not largely because of the school’s performance in certain programs but because these are popular schools.”
Villoria said that was the time he learned that the options for Filipino students to pursue higher education in the country is very narrowed.
“He learned there was no official ranking of schools,” Villoria said. “School choice is very metro-centric, which obviously does not represent the pluralized reality of education providers.”
Villoria explained that Henry then saw that, while incoming college students from Section (SEC) A and B will most likely pursue college, “the lack of accessible information on schools and scholarships will definitely leave our youth from SEC C, D and E behind.” “Edukasyon.ph did not spring from a vision of a one big problem and one possible alone, it is a fruition of the needs of those who have the least and a fulfillment of those who want to do more for the country, especially in education reform.”
To be continued