ILOILO City – To raise teacher motivation and the development of quality education in challenged areas of the Philippines, Project FORTH was launched at the West Visayas State University – College of Education (WVSU-COE) on Thursday at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Main Hall.
Project FORTH means Formation of Teachers in Emerging Challenged Areas in the Philippines. It is co-funded by the Erasmus Programme of the European Union that has a mission of reforming higher education degree programs particularly teacher education to make it relevant for the learner by enhancing employability, civic, social and cultural engagement.
“If we want to have quality teachers we must start it with the pre-service teachers,” said Dr. Hilda Montaño, dean of the College of Education.
With Iloilo as one of the pilot areas, FORTH aims to develop a network of higher education institutions, associations and stakeholders creating a system quality, motivation and support to teacher training in a number of emerging challenged areas in the Philippines that could serve as a model of teacher training for similar contexts in the world.
WVSU vows its support to the project evident with University President Dr. Luis Sorolla’s reading of the signed Memorandum of Agreement between the WVSU and the Project FORTH Team and the issuance of Board Resolution No. 110 series 2018 for the implementation of the said endeavor.
Present in the event were the project designer Julia Gonzalez, project coordinators Dr. Rober Wagenaar from the University of Gronengin and. Dr. Emma Melgarejo of Education for an Interdependent World in Brussels, Belgium.
Representatives of the following “complementary universities” were also there: Polytechnic University of the Philippines – (PUP) Manila, Centro Escolar University – (CEU) Manila, University of Southeastern Philippines – (USeP) Davao and University of St. La Salle-(USLS) Bacolod.
Also present at the launch were representatives of the three European universities leading in educational reform and international organizations in Europe. They are the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, and the University of Bologna in Bologna, Italy together with the following institutions: Education for an Interdependent World in Brussels, Belgium with is the project co-coordinator and Fundacion Intered in Madrid, Spain that coordinates NGOs’ development work in different parts of the world.
Officials of the Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education and the WVSU community also gave their responses at the launch. (Orlando M. Gamilla Jr., Silak, WVSU-COE/PN)
