THE University of Santo Tomas Graduate School-Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics (USTGS-CCCPET) recently held the pilot training for cultural mapping nationwide among teachers under the Education Department.
The training activity was in accordance with the 10-point agenda of Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones, which highlighted the importance of Philippine arts, culture, history and heritage in basic education toward self-sustaining and inclusive development. The aim of the country-wide activity was to orient selected educators on the cultural-mapping process, identify distinct cultural resources of their local communities, as well as document narratives of heritage resources for educational utilization and future reference of the department.
The pre-orientation meeting among supervisors and teachers from 17 regions of the country was held online on June 30. Education program supervisors or their alternates, and 12 nominated teachers, represented each region. A total of 221 select teachers participated in the 15-day intensive online cultural-mapping training.
Associate Professor Eric B. Zerrudo, PhD., who is USTGS-CCCPET’s director, conducted the series of lectures, and provided the online delivery of the training. He was assisted by Beverly Bautista of the center’s staff, who was in-charge of facilitating the workshop series through the innovative Heritage Online Mapping Experience, or HOME, platform.
(Posted in the USTGS-CCCPET web site, HOME is the customized UST online portal for cultural mapping developed by the center to meet the demands of national agencies and local government units during the pandemic. It may be accessed via https://ustgs-cccpet.com.ph/h-o-m-e/.)
The online training was held from July 5 to 9, July 12 to 16, and July 19, while the August training session was held between August 3 and 6. All were delivered through synchronous and asynchronous modes.
The nationwide cultural-mapping training was conducted through the collaboration of the USTGS-CCCPET, Bureau of Learning Delivery and the Cultural Center of the Philippines’s Arts Education Department.