Messages

Message from the Editors

The kite must fly seriously high – not just with the wind, but against it. The wind’s opposition improves its flight. In the context of the Department of Education (DepEd), it must be the mission and vision of quality education. It must be Sulong Edukalidad for the community of innovators, learning leaders, and researchers. It must be an invitation for collaboration and inclusion for quality education service for Filipino children.

Sulong Edukalidad as DepEd’s quality education reform pursues the KITE quadrants for improvement: K to 12 review and update; Improvement of learning environment; Teachers’ Upskilling and reskilling; and Engagement of stakeholders for support and collaboration. Complementary to this reform is the publication of The K.I.T.E. Journal to highlight informed actions embedded in the research documents as significant learnings gained from the K to 12 Issues and Trends Explored. Originally, this journal is conceived to feature the preparations and milestones of distance learning implementation at the onset of the contagion. As its preparations reel off, the exploration widens for relevant themes and ideas, pre-pandemic challenges, emergencies, and other reasons influencing important acts of change, including blended and hybrid learning delivery modalities,

This maiden issue bares that the education sector makes learning bountiful by doing research. Teaching, being the primordial mandate of DepEd, grows a community of educators that cultivates a culture of research. The K.I.T.E. Journal offers this space to them as an inclusive platform for educational research publication, for knowledge sharing of practices to stakeholders, for utilization and adoption, and for quality teaching-learning and continuous improvement purposes.

Benchmarking may not just happen by doing physical visits in the schools and workplaces, but also by virtually reading published articles that can inspire more research-based initiatives for the education of the Filipinos. Supportive of the DepEd’s Basic Education Research Agenda, these initiatives can perpetuate discussions in School Learning Action Cells (SLACs) for professional and curriculum development, instructional supervision and technical assistance.

Further, this platform may spawn discourse on emerging curricular concerns for higher education institutions, particularly in the pre-education service. Ideas on strengthening partnership for immersion purposes and additional educational tracks in senior high school may also be considered for reshaping the K to 12 curricula. All these and more may proceed as offshoots of this initiative.

Thank you very much to the Office of the Undersecretary for Curriculum Instruction, Diosdado M. San Antonio, for the inspiration to initiate the organization of The Kite Journal to magnify sharing and learning, leading and benchmarking, utilization and adoption of research results.

Sharing is essential for growing professional communities like ours. And this is where The K.I.T.E Journal delights to take us all.

Message from the Department Secretary

Message from the Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction

The results of the most recent cycles of three international large-scale assessments may be discouraging. But these results have further strengthened the determination of the department to confront the challenge of quality in basic education. We also believe that together with the local and international partners, and with a data-driven policy approach, we will carry on and confront these challenges.

Foreseeing an innovative Philippine Education to cope with a rapidly changing world, a national campaign to embark on an aggressive reform program in globalizing the quality of basic education in the Philippines, ‘Sulong EduKalidad’ had been conceptualized long before the release of the results of these international measures of academic progress. While we acknowledge the fact that many factors influence quality learning, it is increasingly clear that teachers and school heads play the most important role in improving the outcomes for all learners. Teachers and school heads are the ones who work directly with the learners. They are the ones who translate and shape curricular goals and theoretical ideas into classroom practice, and they are the ones who have the immediate control in shaping the environment for learning, in collaboration with the stakeholders who selflessly support the teaching and learning processes. Teachers’ and school heads’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions, therefore, have direct and serious implications for the success of every learner.

But our obsessive nature to quantify the desired learning outcomes by setting numerical targets to measure quality, in general, oftentimes disregard one important truth: that there is still an amazing richness of best practices on the ground derived from the innovations developed by our teachers who are deeply committed to their profession, in collaboration with the learners, families and communities, and these innovations need to be captured, to be reflected upon, to be used, and to be enhanced, and ultimately, should influence the whole Philippine education system.

These strengths are the inspiration of the Curriculum and Instruction strand to officially recognize the important contributions that are deeply informed by the science of learning and development, from every individual in the department in the achievement of quality education through the quarterly e-publication of K.I.T.E (K to 12 Issues and Trends Explored) Journal. The submitted articles, researches, reports that impart their effective strategies and innovations in the field since FY 2016 are very encouraging. Truly, these will help teachers learn from the experiences of their colleagues through the sharing of solutions, technical expertise, and lifting each other on the transition to building forward.

The first issue of K.I.T.E. Journal is hoped to be a strong beginning. I encourage everyone to celebrate these innovations, learn from our colleagues, and find the implications of these for our profession. May this be a challenge to iteratively fill the gaps, extend the evidence base, and anchor the findings in local contexts. It is our fervent hope that this will give you insights in finding ways to contribute, engage, and make your best practices more visible as we build powerful communities within the teaching profession, and within the Philippine Education System, in general.

May God continuously lead and bless all our endeavors. Sulong EduKalidad!

Message from the Assistant Secretary for Curriculum and Instruction

The Department of Education has been making strides towards innovating basic education in the context of a drastically changing world, through the Sulong Edukalidad initiative, even before the unprecedented transition from the traditional in-classroom learning to online and modular learning.

While the global pandemic has led to the emergence of new challenges in basic education such as: mental and physical health concerns; poor internet connections; and the elusive search for conducive teaching and learning spaces, DepEd has responded to these challenges by: producing and distributing Self-Learning Modules; launching online learning systems such as: the DepEd Commons, DepEd TV and Radio, and training teachers in the conduct of blended teaching and learning.

The details of these initiatives are elucidated in the KITE journal which features articles, research projects, and technical reports on the preparations and milestones of DepEd’s distance learning from various levels of governance.

As we continue to face new challenges in our transition to the new normal, it is our hope that the lessons learned during the pandemic would serve to inspire all of us to keep pressing on in providing quality education to every Filipino Learner.

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