ABSTRACT
This study was conducted in order to have an in-depth look on the lived experience of Adopt-A-School Program (ASP) Coordinators and understand the common challenges encountered in the implementation of the Program specifically in the Adopt-a-Child with regards to Tulong Pabaon. As an output of the study, crafting a Plan of Action to sustain and strengthen the program was proposed.
The research design used in this study was qualitative with phenomenology as approach with the use of purposeful sampling. The respondents of the study include ten ASP Coordinators in selected public schools in the East district and one from the SGOD-SDO DepEd Calamba for the division level. Using guided questions in an unstructured interview conducted online in an audio-record type.
The study used thematic analysis as a means of analyzing the data collected from the responses of the participants and generated ten superordinate themes which were Connecting Schools and Community, Sustainability of the Program, Harnessing Stronger Relationships, Maintaining Transparency, Awarding of Stakeholders’ Recognition, Stronger Connections Among Partners, Reduced Absenteeism, Improved Academic Performance, Students’ Needs and Parental Involvement and Adopting to Varying Strategies.
The findings revealed that ASP Coordinators have similar ways of implementing the program, as well as establishing more relationships and building a stronger partnership among stakeholders and the school. Achieving goals and sustaining the program Adopt-a-Child with regards to Tulong Pabaon that would later produce more success stories of students in the future.
The researcher reflected that with their program implemented, we have created a way of helping and motivating students with their studies in public schools through the help of the stakeholders, making the school and its linkages embrace all student’s needs by providing quality education to all. Delivering hopes to learners and assuring them that no one gets left behind in education.
Introduction
“Parents, families, educators, and communities—there’s no better partnership to assure that all students pre-K to high school have the support and resources they need to succeed in school and in life.”
- NEA President Dennis Van Roekel
Education is the key to a better future. This is true especially for the young who experienced at an early age to work and earn for a living. Education was a bedrock in achieving one’s goal and being successful in the future even though the status in life could be a hindrance. Thus, it becomes a strong foundation for the youth. It helps them reach their dreams, become globally competent and successful in the future. With the belief of Education for All (EFA), no matter what race, disability, age, and economic status of learners, they have the right to quality education as supported primarily by the school, the family, and the community where they belong.
In addition, education has the utmost importance in the Philippines. It had always been strongly viewed as a pillar of national development and a primary avenue for social and economic mobility. This is why the Department of Education (DepEd) is seeking different approaches and programs to deliver quality education for all especially in public schools. It needs full support and shared responsibility of the school and the community to achieve quality education for the learners.
To support the claim, Kozol (2014) mentioned that quality education cannot be achieved by the school alone, it is actually a joint effort of parents, teachers, community and stakeholders. With this, the country passed the Republic Act 8525, otherwise known as the Adopt-a-School Act of 1998, which declared the responsibility of the state to provide quality and relevant education to the Filipino youth and to encourage private initiative to support public education. This Act paved the way on establishing Adopt-a-School Program (ASP). This program refers to where a private entity agrees to extend assistance to a public school in a particular aspect/s of its educational program within an agreed period of time. This program was the Department of Education’s (DepEd) vehicle in mobilizing support from the private and non-government sectors. Based on the list of assistance packages, developed and aligned in the ASP, interested companies may sponsor a certain school on their Programs, Projects and Activities (PPAs) with regards to learners’ development and progress.
In accordance with the DepEd’s program, a designation was given to a focal person in the division who had the knowledge and skills about the program. It made her or him the Sr. Education Program Specialist for Social Mobilization (SocMob) section of School Governance and Operations Division (SGOD). He or she was also the Adopt-a-School Program (ASP) Coordinator and monitors the implementation of the program in all schools within the division.
Moreover, school heads were instructed to appoint a teacher who would be their supervising personnel in the school. Designations were given to the appointed ASP Coordinators where they must perform the duties and responsibilities that were stated in the signed designation order. With this, the ASP coordinatorship was formalized.
ASP Coordinators were linking the school and its internal and external partners together. They are in charge of monitoring the outcomes of the activities, processing the insights and learning gained by their team involved in partnership and submitting liquidation and accomplishment reports to the SocMob every quarter in the Schools Division Office (SDO).
Moreover, since the researcher is also an ASP Coordinator in their school, she was encountering some challenges in the implementation of the program. Challenges such as meeting the demands to communicate and allure more stakeholders to support the school particularly in sustaining a program called Adopt-a-Child, which was the financial assistance under Adopt-a-School Program. Seeking answers to questions like, what practices could effectively design, engage, implement and sustain for these programs to run successfully under Adopt-a-School? and what was the result of better communications, interactions across these three important aspects in a learner’s education? On the grounds that Adopt-a-Child with regards to Tulong Pabaon was a program wherein stakeholders support a child with financial assistance such as baon for food and transportation since their family cannot alone provide it for them because of poverty. Failing to create a firm foundation with the stakeholders and the community to the program would greatly affect the learners and school education system as a whole.
Research Design
This study utilized qualitative research with phenomenology as an approach. Qualitative research is an approach for investigating and understanding the meaning people or bunches attribute to a social or human issue. Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world (Creswell, 2014). The results of qualitative studies are described in narrative terms. Through this process, the researcher had gathered data that helped her in looking into the personal experiences and viewpoints of the ASP coordinators. A phenomenological approach was used where the researcher identifies the ‘essence” of human experiences concerning a phenomenon, to construct a universal meaning of the event, situation or experience and arrive at a more profound understanding of the phenomenon. An unstructured interview instrument was used to explore the lived experience of ASP Coordinators. The process of research also involves emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant’s setting, data analysis inductively building from particulars to general themes and the researcher making interpretations to the data collected. Since this sort of inquiry depends on human experiences and regularly had diverse elucidations. Qualitative Methods utilized interviews and discourses whereas displaying the information from the person’s point of view. Through inductive strategies in phenomenological approaches, information was collected without being seen as futile presumptions and can contribute to investigating that's related to experience.
Phenomenological method was used because it is where data and information were obtained only by emphasizing personal experiences and comprehensions. This method was effective in finding out an individual’s experiences and perceptions from their perspectives wherein the data obtained was used in making normative assumptions. This strand of research was discovery-oriented and the findings were not predetermined because variables were not manipulated, instead it was emergent in design. Research questions at the onset as well as data collection procedures or protocols may change as the need arises.
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