Online inclusion for remote Philippines communities

Publish date	2008-08-06
Available Articles	Full articles without membership

One of the oldest universities in Asia is to continue using distance learning to improve access to higher education among remote indigenous peoples.

The University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines has announced it will carry on with a pilot project that began in 1999 to give students from the Aetas community a chance to improve their lives through learning.

According to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the university’s project has so far produced 49 graduates from Bamban in the Tarlac province of the country. The first successful students recently received their certificates of recognition for a four-year course.

The programme provides education to individuals impeded by distance, lack of time, or physical incapacity.

Started in 1999 by UST’s former student affairs head and now alumni affairs director Evelyn Songco, the programme was administered by “para-teachers” under the supervision of College of Education Assistant Professor Marielyn Quintana and Faculty of Arts and Letters Assistant Professor Arlene Domingo.

“I am very happy for the Aeta adult learners. Each of them had been very eager to learn new things and to accept changes,” Lucy Guya, one of the para-teachers, said when she graduated.

The Aeta are an indigenous people who live in scattered, isolated mountainous parts of Luzon in the Philippines. They are thought to be among the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines, preceding the Austronesian migrations.

Mining, deforestation, illegal logging, and slash-and-burn farming has caused the indigenous population in all parts of the Philippines to steadily decrease to the point where they number in the thousands today.

After the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991, most of the Aeta communities found refuge in the highlands of Zambales and Tarlac.

Five areas in the province of Tarlac – Mabilog, Malasa, Haduan, San Martin, and Santa Rosa – are now partner communities of UST, where non-formal classes via two-way radio are conducted.

Aside from topics on environmental conservation, livelihood, health, responsible parenthood and community development, the programme will also teach Aetas learners practical things like learning how to read and write, and understanding legal documents about their ancestral domain and the value of their crops.

Founded in 1611 in Manila, UST is one of the oldest universities in the world.

Nineteen other schools offer distance learning in the Philippines. The largest provider is the University of the Philippines Open University. Last semester, there were more than 2,000 students enrolled at the Open University.

Other schools that offer full academic degree programmes via distance learning that are duly recognized by the Philippine government, through accreditation with the Commission on Higher Education, include the Asian Institute for Distance Learning and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Programmes at these schools enjoy the same legal status and privileges as those offered in traditional colleges and universities, and are eligible for credit to other institutions of higher learning.

Keywords: distance learning, indigenous people, Philippines.

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