PUP Offers New Master’s Degree to Address Teaching in Challenged Areas
By: Dr. Ma. Junithesmer D. Rosales
Director, Office for Teaching and Learning Development, PUP;
Project Forth Transnational Management Team Member
The Polytechnic University of Philippines College of Education Graduate Studies offers a new Master’s program, the Master of Arts in Education major in Teaching in Challenged Areas (MAED-TCA), aims to provide advanced teacher training wherein students are taught to change their perspectives from problems to opportunities, from negative perceptions to positive opportunities in a specific formation program. This is because teachers need support to cope with the different demands of teaching in challenged areas. Strengthening motivation to teach in these contexts becomes an urgency to carry out a difficult but critical mission.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in February 2021 approved MAED-TCA. Three universities that successfully fulfilled the new program requirements were awarded the certificate of program compliance (COPC), namely: Polytechnic University of the Philippines (Sta. Mesa, Manila), West Visayas State University (Iloilo); and University of Saint La Salle (Bacolod).
With the opening of first semester classes this October in PUP, a good number of students enrolled in the program that came from various academic backgrounds. This implies a positive response to the identified challenges and emerging ones that are experienced by teachers in Philippine classrooms.
MAED-TCA is a unique program and first of its kind in country. It is one of the deliverables of Project Forth or “FORMATION OF TEACHERS IN EMERGING CHALLENGED AREAS in the PHILIPPINES.” Project Forth is an Erasmus Plus capacity-building project, co-funded by the European Commission. This project is composed of three illustrious European universities: University of Groningen (RUG) in Netherlands, University of Bologna (UniBo) in Italy, and University of Deusto (UD) in Spain complemented by five notable Philippine universities that form the five clusters of the project: PUP, WVSU, University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP), University of Saint La Salle (USLS) in Bacolod, and Centro Escolar University (CEU). Each cluster institution is supported by Department of Education (DepEd) teachers who were the resource persons in identifying and understanding challenged areas from which the curriculum of the new major was crafted through face to face collaborations, online meetings, inter-island and continental trainings to explore various aspects of the challenges through a collegial and synergistic experience.
The project is also in partnership with government and non-government agencies here and abroad: CHED, SEAMEO-Innotech, Philippine Association for Teachers and Educators (PAFTE), Intered, Education for an Interdependent World, and Teresian Association International, Inc.
Meanwhile, to graduate from MAED-TCA, a student has to finish nine units of foundation courses (Foundations of Education, Statistics, and Methods of Research); 18 units of major courses (Understanding the Context of Challenged Areas; Profile of a Teacher Marginalized Areas; Creating an Inviting and Workable Learning Climate in Challenged Areas; Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Challenged Areas; Creation of Relevant and Appropriate Teaching Materials for Challenged Areas; Creating a Collegial Teaching and Learning Community Reaching out to a Global Reality) three units of any elective course (Education for Peace, Foundations of Special Education, Mental Hygiene, or Psychology of the Reading Process); and six units of thesis writing.
Local and international education experts comprise the faculty of the program. They hold relevant doctorate degrees; have completed the six modules as well as three training-workshops conducted by the project for a period of three years from 2019-2021.
Forth lead coordinator Dr. Robert Wagenaar (RUG); Project Developer Dr. Julia Gonzales (EDIW); and Academic Director Dr. Emma Melgarejo (EDIW) closely monitor the implementation of the project and ensure that all universities are well coordinated and informed.
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