SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

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Learning and Training Development

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Internationally-Funded Program Over the fiscal year, the Center was able to conduct a two-week course under the SEAMEO Education Development Fund (SEDF), in line with the recommendations of the Center’s Governing Board during its 55th meeting held last September 2011. The Validated Competency Framework for Southeast Asian School Heads developed for SEAMEO INNOTECH’s LEARNTECH Project was also one of the basis of the focus of these courses.

Blended Learning Course for School Leaders and Managers on Excellence in Leading Curricular and Instructional Reforms for Continuing School Improvement In response to the school leaders’ need for a practitioner-oriented learning program on leading curricular and instructional reform in school, SEAMEO INNOTECH offered this innovative blended learning program. Supported under the SEAMEO Educational Development Fund (SEDF), the program was designed for school leaders in primary and secondary school as well as education managers in the MOEs in SEAMEO-member countries.This was attended by twenty-two (22) school heads from eight SEAMEO member countries; namely: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia,Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam. The participants were guided through a series of online and face-to-face learning activities to enable them to share and reflect on their curricular and instructional leadership practices. Phase 1 was conducted on 11-23 November 2012 and Phase 2, the face-to-face component, was held on 3-14 December. This was capped by another online learning exchange, conducted from 28 January – 1 February, 2013, which enabled the participants to share lessons on how they were able to implement their action plans on the ground. The context of the discussions in this learning program was focused on the education reform program and its impact on the participants’ leadership practice to improve school performance, in general, and curricular and instructional practices, in particular. This program was also held back-to-back with the 13th International Conference which enabled the participants to join the 3-day conference entitled: Educating for the Future We want: A Green Southeast Asia.

Fourth Regional Education Forum: Secondary Education Curriculum Reform in Southeast Asia: Issues, Trends and Future Directions (23-25 October 2012) Given the breadth of national curriculum agenda affecting education systems across Southeast Asia, this Fourth Regional Education Forum was organized to gather educators in the region to have a deeper discussion and conversation about the current and emerging issues, trends and future directions of curriculum reform in secondary education. This

Regional Forum provided opportunities for the participants to analyze common challenges in secondary education curricular reform, share curricula innovations and good practices and talk about possible recommendations to address common emerging concerns. In general, this forum was aimed at fostering constructive and continuing dialogue and consultation about the theme: “Secondary Education Curriculum Reform in Southeast Asia: Issues,Trends and Future Directions”. Eighteen (18) participants composed of Senior Education Officials from the Ministry involved in secondary education curricula reforms and selected Secondary School Heads from nine SEAMEO Member countries attended the forum. Small group conversations were organized to generate more interactions and share concrete experiences in reforming the secondary education curriculum both at the Ministry and school levels to squarely address the changing demands and realities of the 21st century. The forum was highlighted by the participants’ sharing and exchanges of perspectives, views and experiences based on their experiences in improving the relevance and quality of secondary education given the emerging development challenges and opportunities in the Region. The Fourth Regional Education Forum was funded by the SEAMEO INNOTECH as part of the SEAMEO INNOTECH Regional Education Program (SIREP).

International Workshop on Higher Education Leadership and Management for Indonesian University Officials (Philippine Component: 8-12 October 2012; Thailand Component: 15-19 October 2012)

The exemplar programs are strategic initiatives where the host institutions in the two countries have chosen to invest faculty and administrative time, funding and planning to combine academics with local/national/regional responsiveness. While serving as interdisciplinary, relevant and innovative knowledge hubs, the exemplar programs showcase the strategic integration of the four core HELM areas of i) sound leadership and management, ii) transparent financial responsibility at the service of academic priorities, iii) attention to quality assurance and iv) the use of data and responsiveness to the needs of external stakeholders.

SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

Twenty (20) University Officials from ten Indonesian Higher Education Institutions (HEI) took part in the pilot run of the International Workshop on Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) in the Philippines from 8 to 12 October 2012 and Thailand from 15 to 19 October 2012. Facilitated by the staff at the HELM Project Jakarta, with assistance from the University of Kentucky and in cooperation with SEAMEO INNOTECH, the international workshop cum study visit is part of the overall thrust of the 5-year USAID HELM Project to develop models and approaches to improve quality of teaching, research and community outreach projects in 25 targeted Indonesian Universities. Selected HEIs in the Philippines and Thailand hosted the participants for a sharing of their journey to develop and sustain exemplary teaching, research and community outreach programs.

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SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

6 The International Workshop in the Philippines and Thailand is a key aspect of the continuing action research to “train” current and upcoming Indonesian academic administrators in developing and implementing quality programs. The participants interacted with key players in host institutions to reflect on and internalize best practices to help them enhance their action research projects which would outline potential models and approaches to integrate good practices on general administration and management, financial management, quality assurance and collaboration with external stakeholders into either a teaching, research and community outreach program. In influencing the target Universities in Indonesia to come up with their own exemplar program through the HELM Project, the Government of Indonesia, through its Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) and in partnership with USAID, aims to transform the HEIs and its implementing arm, the Directorate General of Higher Education (or DIKTI, Directorat Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi), into robust institutions capable of carrying out the higher education reform effort in the country in line with the newly passed higher education law and its 2010-2014 Strategic Plan.

Study Visit Program on Capacity Development for Education for All (CapEFA) for Lao PDR: Capacity Building Support for Teacher Education in Lao PDR (Sponsored by UNESCO Bangkok) 19-23 March 2013 The Government of Lao PDR commits to improve the quality of education in the country consistent with the goals under the National Education System Reform Strategy 20062015 and the recently developed 10-year Education Sector Development Framework. One of the more important reform areas under the plan is the improvement of teacher education that directly contributes to high quality education in the country. Along this line, SEAMEO INNOTECH was engaged by UNESCO Bangkok under the program “Capacity Development for Education for All (CapEFA) for Lao PDR: Capacity Building Support for Teacher Education in Lao PDR” to assist in the development of a competency-based curriculum for pre-service teacher education for its key education stakeholders in Lao PDR in August 2012. As an off-shoot of this initiative and to continue the reform process in teacher education, UNESCO Bangkok again requested the Center to organize a High-Level Study Visit Program to the Philippines to learn lessons from the experiences and practices regarding teachers’ training and development programs, managing teachers’ performance; and quality assurance and accreditation system. The three-day study visit program was positioned to have great potential in generating valuable lessons and insights necessary to further improve the delivery of teacher education services in Lao PDR. The main purpose of the study visit was to gain learning and insights from the Philippine experiences and practices on teacher training and development, managing teacher performance and assuring quality of teachers in the country that will provide valuable inputs in improving the teacher education services in Lao PDR. The program was developed as a learning package that included structured learning sessions and areas for discussions as participants visited the identified learning institutions in the Philippines. This process enabled the group to broaden their perspectives and build

their knowledge as they think of initiatives that they can introduce to help improve teacher education in their country. This started the process of building potential partnerships between Lao PDR and the organizations visited for a mutual collaboration on teacher education and development. This was attended by five high level education officers from the Ministry of Education of Lao PDR namely: •

Mr. Chandy PHOMMABOUTH - the Director General of the Department of Teacher Education

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Ms. Varadune AMARATHITHADA - the Deputy Director General for In-Service Teacher Education, under the MOE’s Department of Teacher Education (2004 to present), and is also a Governing Board Member of SEAMEO RECSAM (SEAMEO Regional Center for Science and Mathematics).

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Mr. Keth PHANHACK - the Deputy Director General for Pre-Service Teacher Education, under the MOE’s Department of Teacher Education

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Mr. Vanhsay NORASENG - the Director of Educational Standards and Quality Assurance Center.

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Mr. Maaly VORABOUTH - the Director of Teacher Education Evaluation Division under the MOE’s Department of Teacher Education.

Developing and Managing Capacity Building Programs for the Government Sector: A Learning Program for the Bangladesh Civil Service Administration Academy (28 May - 5 June 2013)

Corollary to this, the role of the Bangladesh Civil Service Academy, as well as the need for the Academy to strengthen its institutional delivery mechanisms and services, becomes even more important. This was the opportune time to revisit the Academy’s strategic directions and overall framework in addressing the competency requirements of the Bangladesh government workforce. Benchmarking on the best practices and strategies of

SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

In light of the ongoing reform efforts in the Bangladesh Civil Service Academy, the provision of training and development programs for the country’s public civil servants has been identified as one of its priority concerns. In year 2003, as part of the reform priorities, a national public administration training policy was developed. It is a manifestation of the commitment of the government to strengthen the delivery of training and development programs, which in turn will facilitate building the capacities of the country’s civil workforce. There were a number of capacity building programs developed and implemented since then, in partnership with various international training institutions and donors, which were meant to develop the competencies of people in the government sector. However, with the current and emerging development challenges brought about by the efforts to enhance the competitiveness of Bangladesh, as well as the demands of globalization and advancement in information and technology, there is an urgent need to continuously update and upgrade the competencies of the country’s public civil servants.

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SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

8 building the capacities of government personnel will provide valuable lessons in improving and creating new learning solutions and professional opportunities for the Academy, to the benefit of the country’s nearly 1 million government workforce. Specifically, this means that the competencies of people responsible in designing and delivering training and development programs must constantly be enhanced given the new and emerging working models on human resource development. In view of this, SEAMEO INNOTECH was engaged by the Bangladesh Civil Service Academy to package a learning program for six High Level Officers of the Academy and the Ministry of Public Administration. This was aimed at providing the participants with strategic perspectives and frameworks on human resource development within the context of the government workforce which will enable them to strengthen existing programs of, and create new learning opportunities and solutions for the Academy. Through the day-to-day learning sessions and interactions with the officers from the various institutions visited, the participants were able to: 1. have a better appreciation of the HRD framework for government workers being implemented by the Philippine Civil Service Commission and other training institutions in the Philippines; 2. gain greater understanding of the complementation of roles and initiatives of the various government agencies in building the capacities of the country’s government workforce; 3. enhance their knowledge and competencies on training development, management, monitoring and evaluation as they learn from the best practices and experiences of various Philippine institutions; 4. enhance their competencies on the use of new learning methodologies and approaches which can strengthen their current program offerings, and 5. define some key action steps that they can apply when they go back to their work stations.

Co-Creating Opportunities for Leveraging School Performance in Brunei Darussalam: A Blended Learning program for Deputy Heads in Primary and Secondary Schools »»

Pre-Course Online Conversation: May 17-22, 2013;

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In-Country Face-to-Face Learning Sessions: June 10-14, 2013 and

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Post-Course Online Sharing of Learning: July 26-29, 2013

So much gains have been made since the 2009 rollout of SPN21 (Sistem Pendidkan Negara Abad Ke-21 or the National Education System for the 21st Century) meant to better prepare Bruneians to address the challenges of the globalized world. Formulated based on the Melayu Islam Beraja philosophy, SPN21 aligns the country’s education system to

attaining Wawasan 20351 goal of developing “educated, highly skilled and accomplished people”. Under SPN21, learner-centered curriculum, assessment for learning and focused technical education are being instituted to enhance the learner’s strengths and abilities and smoothen the transition from preschool to secondary level. SPN21 forms part of the 2007-2011 Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Education. Gains during that period included the introduction of compulsory education from ages 5 to 16, upgrading of secondary school teacher qualifications and use of ICT in schools. For the 2012-2017 period, the Ministry is strategically pursuing early childhood care and education, teacher standards development, and rollout of Model and Boarding Schools to further contribute to socio-economic growth and nation building. In implementing these initiatives, the Ministry and the schools are faced with the challenge of transitioning to high-performing learning organizations. The threefold focus of the strategic shift are teaching and learning excellence, professionalism and accountability, and efficiency and innovativeness. Given all these developments, the Brunei’s Ministry of Education through their Department of Schools’ Training and Development Unit, once again engaged SEAMEO INNOTECH to conduct a follow-through program for its thirty (30) Deputy School Heads of both the primary and secondary schools. This learning program entitled: Co-Creating Opportunities for Leveraging School Performance in Brunei Darussalam, is part of the overall thrust of the Ministry to enhance the capability of the school leaders and help strengthen their professional development that will collectively foster the changes under SPN21. This is also part of the succession planning program as deputy heads from 15 primary and 15 secondary schools are being prepared to assume more strategic leadership roles and responsibilities to improve schools towards attainment of Wawasan 2035. Delivered as a practitioner-oriented blended learning program, it was aimed at enhancing the competencies of the Deputy School Leaders to co-create curricular and instructional initiatives towards improving learning outcomes under SPN21.

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SPN21’s underlying thrust is to build a knowledge-based economy that facilitates economic performance, investment, wealth creation and participation in the global economy. The thrusts pursued under SPN21 is anchored on the following Wawasan 2035 education policy: 1) investing in early childhood education; 2) adopting international best practices in teaching and learning; 3) education system producing experts, professional and technicians required in commerce and industry; 4) strengthen ICT for students, teachers, education administration including integration of ICT in school curriculum; 5) devising programs that promote lifelong learning and wider access to higher education; 6) promoting research; development and innovation both in government funded institution and through private and international partnerships; 7) adopting cost-effective methods of educating people through use of technology and 8)improving management of all our educational institutions.

SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

This learning program consisted of a series of interrelated learning modules and was delivered in blended learning mode through a mix of online and face-to-face training sessions in Brunei Darussalam. The online sessions was a combination of asynchronous sharing and synchronous dialogues via the INNOTECH Flexible Learning Management (IFLEX) platform.

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SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

10 Phase 1 of this learning program consisted of online interaction using the iFLEX to profile practical concerns and issues in co-leading school improvement in general and in implementing improvements in curriculum and instructional practices based on SPN21 in particular.This phase was conducted from 17 to 22 May 2013. This was followed by a fiveday face-to-face learning sessions from 10 to 14 June 2013 at the Institute of Leadership and Innovation Academy (ILIA) located within the University of Brunei Darussalam. Phase 3, a post-course online sharing of learning will be done on 26 to 29 July 2013.

Philippine Government-Funded Programs District Supervisors Leadership II (DSL) Program After a successful run of the thirty-two (32) DSL Classes from 2010-2012, the Department of Education Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) requested SEAMEO INNOTECH to run one DSL Class for its thirty-one District Supervisors. For DSL ARMM, adjustments in the design were done to appropriately respond to the unique requirements and needs of the ARMM District Supervisors. But largely, the program enabled the District Supervisors to take a closer look at their varied roles and functions and examine how they can effectively contribute to the achievement of the set education goals and objectives at the District level. Since the schools are in the middle of implementing the K to 12 reform program, this served as the overall context of the program for DSL ARMM specifically how they can provide high quality instructional leadership and supervision to ensure continuous school improvement and performance. Just like in the previous DSL classes, this program was delivered via the blended learning approach, which involved three interrelated phases, where: Phase 1 involved a twoweek face-to-face live-in training, Phase 2 was a two-week online learning exchange and mentoring and Phase 3 consisted of a two-day integration session meant to consolidate the learning and insights gained by the learners on how they were able to implement their action plans and discuss and agree on concrete actions that would sustain their gains and achievements so far.

Working Collaboratively to Enhance the Provincial Education Agenda:   “Padayon! Ang Bag-ong Surigao” (August 20-24, 2012) This program was conducted in partnership with the Provincial Government of Surigao del Norte which is currently implementing the HEALS Agenda as the strategic development plan of the province. This agenda serve as the unifying development framework of all the government agencies and organizations working for the province. HEALS which stands for health, education, environment, agriculture, livelihood, tourism, social services, security as well as enhance spiritual renewal seeks to optimize the potentials of Surigao de Norte as it effectively and efficiently addresses the concerns and needs of its total populace.

In the middle of this agenda is the focus on human capital development which is considered an essential component of the province’s growth and development. Given this, the thirty (30) participants composed of the key officers from the provincial development and planning office and the three Schools Division Offices of DepED focused the discussion on how to fully harness the potentials of the peoples of province with its existing programs and projects and at the same time, come up with a new set of innovative programs based on the community needs.The participants reviewed the current version of the agenda, looked at the programs that are working in other provinces and talked about how the different units and offices within the province can best complement their efforts particularly the programs on the education sector. This five day program was able to come up with concrete joint actions between the provincial development office and the education division offices towards achieving the education goals and objectives of the entire province.

Building a Core of K to 12 Instructional Coaches in DepED Zambales (10-14 December 2012) This program is a partnership between SEAMEO INNOTECH and the Provincial Government of Zambales through its Schools Division Office. Attended by thirty (30) Division and District Supervisors, the program was designed to address the specific competency needs of the Division and District Supervisors of DepED Zambales, upgrade their knowledge and skills on how to become instructional coaches, and create a shared agenda on instructional supervision as they coach and guide the school heads on the implementation K to 12 Basic Education Program.

The participants were also given the opportunity to participate in the first day of the 13th International Conference which provided them insights and new learning on how ESD can be best integrated into the curriculum, in particular and in the Division programs in general.

SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

With the K to 12 implementation, the Division and District Supervisors must necessarily focus their energies in providing instructional support and advise to school heads and teacher leaders. They were updated with the strategic directions of the Department of Education, the salient features of the K to 12 program and implications to their roles as Instructional Coaches. This program provided the participants to enhance their competencies on three critical skill areas: namely; introducing innovations in the K to 12 curriculum, conducting school-based action research and creating a culture of continuous learning. Team development activities and exercises were interspersed in the design to enable them to rebuild the spirit of teamwork and camaraderie among them.

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SEAMEO INNOTECH Annual Report 2012-2013

12 Distribution of Participants For the reporting period, a total of 187 education leaders and officers from the nine SEAMEO member countries participated in the various learning and training development programs implemented by the Center. Sad to note, however, that for this fiscal year, Myanmar and Timor Leste have not been represented in any of the regional programs offered by the Center. Table 1 shows the distribution of participants by country. A little more than fifty percent (51%) of the participants came from the Philippines given the number of customized program requested by the Department of Education. Gender-wise, fifty-eight percent (58%) of the participants are females and forty-two percent (42%) are males. Also for this reporting period, there were six participants from Bangladesh who attended a study visit program organized by SEAMEO INNOTECH.

Countries Brunei Darussalam Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Bangladesh Total

Male 13 2 16 7 1 32 1 1 3 3 79

Female 21 2 8 2 3 64 1 3 1 3 108

Total 34 4 24 9 4 96 2 4 4 6 187