USTGS-CCCPET, UST-IR rolls off One Values Project in Samar Province

The Samar Provincial Government, the longtime LGU partner of the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics (USTGS-CCCPET), collaborates for a numerous project in the field of heritage research and education.  

In 2021, the Samar Province Cultural Education Curriculum (SPCEC) project, a continuing utilization program of the cultural mapping of Samar Province, began despite the physical distance barriers brought by the global pandemic. A composite team from the UST Institute of Religion and practitioners in the cultural education field worked together to develop the first contextualized cultural education curriculum framework in the country and province. The curriculum is based on the cultural mapping outputs in developing students’ cultural competencies in Basic Education and Adult Education. It links the cultural competencies to the Essential Learning Competencies of the Department of Education that guide the development of culture-based learning modules. 

In 2022, phase 2 of the project continues the Culture-based Learning Module Writeshop guided by the SPCEC Framework for selected teachers from the Catbalogan Division, Calbayog Division, and Samar Division of Samar Province. 

In 2023, the province wide module writing competition was launched to widely tap the whole teacher population of the Samar Province as potential module writers. It used the SPCEC Framework as a basis for developing teaching-learning materials.

The UST team headed by Prof. Joan Christi T. Bagaipo led the team from the UST Institute of Religion together with Ma. Sanita Quilatan, Marites Redoña, Chito Sawit, Claudita Yaranon, and Maria Cecilia Balajadia, joined by Ms. Ricamela Palis and Roland Peter Nicart, the curriculum developers of USTGSCCCPET, serve as panel and deliberate 200 module entries. 

Hon. Sharee Ann Tan, Governor of Samar Province and the champion and crusader of cultural education, attended the culminating and awarding ceremony, she is joined by the Department of Education Regional Director VIII, Dr. Evelyn R. Fetalvero and Assoc. Prof. Eric B. Zerrudo, Ph.D., the project Director of SPCEC and University of Santo Tomas Graduate School Center for the Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics (USTGS-CCCPET).

A diverse group of teachers from the three divisions of Samar Province received their certificates, plaques of appreciation, and cash prizes. 

Dr. Moises D. Labian, the School Division Superintendent of Division of Samar, assured us of the ways forward for the project: the implementation of SPCEC Modules as part of the K-12 Curriculum and the Adult Education modules.