LPU and IPs: a journey toward equitable education

The Philippines is home to around 14 to 17 million Indigenous Peoples (IPs) belonging to 110 ethnolinguistic groups, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

IP communities have high rates of unemployment and illiteracy due to a lack of access to quality education.

And more often than not, IPs experience racial discrimination within the space of traditional schools because of their colors and appearances. Because of this, IPs prefer to skip classes to avoid shame and embarrassment.

Lycean faculty and researchers Dr. Marilyn Ngales, and Ms. Leonora H. Astete discovered in a 2020 research paper that Dumagat families in Quezon province are afraid of traditional schools due to their urgent demands for tuition fees.

The Dumagat parents were worried that their children would receive low grades because of their inability to pay the schools on time, according to Ngales and Astete.

LPU researchers (Ibrahim, 2018; Venturina, 2018; and Villareal, 2018) found out that the 27 Dumagat families in Brgy. Anoling in General Nakar, Quezon were increasing. But the biggest, albeit unfortunate, discovery made by the LPU researchers was that the nearest school to the IP community was 30 to 40 minutes away on foot.

Because of this, the LPU, through its Community Outreach and Service Learning (COSeL) department, proposed the implementation of an education program dedicated to the needs of the Dumagat families. Lo and behold, the University opened the Katutubong Paaralan ng Jose P. Laurel (KPJPL) in 2012. The KPJPL was founded by the University and the PUGAHAN Project (Pamana’y Ugatin, Hasain at Arugain), with support from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the Australian Agency for International Development (Mabuan, 2021).

One of the key characteristics of KPJPL is that teachers and even volunteers from the University teach Dumagat students how to read, sing, and write in their native language of Dumaget.

In their research, Ibrahim et al. (2018) pointed out that language is one of the significant aspects of educating IPs since they find comfort and learn better through their native languages. Ngales and Astete (2020) noted that the University’s efforts have yielded positive results as they empowered the education system of the Dumagat children and contributed in saving Dumaget from dying.

The University’s efforts in improving the lives of the Dumagat tribe have not gone unnoticed. In 2014, the University received the “Program of the Year” award from the Philippine Management Association of the Philippines for its programs aimed at improving the lives of IPs.

In 2018, the University was awarded “Excellence in Social Responsibility” while Ngales was given the “Leader of the Year” award by the London-based agency Investors in People.

LPU was the first to offer the Master of Arts in Education with a Specialization in Indigenous Education and the Master of Arts in Indigenous Studies degrees in 2016.

Ngales is the current dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a former director of the University’s Community Outreach and Service Learning (COSeL) department. Astete is the current director of COSeL.

Sources:

Mabuan, R. A. (2021). The Ethnolinguistic Vitality of the Dumagat Communities in Three Philippine Provinces. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computing, Communication and Control System, I3CAC 2021, 7–8 June 2021, Bharath University, Chennai, India. **https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.7-6-2021.2308597&nbsp**;

Ngales, M., & Astete, L. (2020). Collaborative Initiatives in Making Education Accessible and Equitable: The Cases of the Agta, Batak and Dumagat Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines. Elementary Education Online, 19(4), 64–77.

Sharah, I., May, V. F., & Joyce, V. A. (2018). The perception of the Dumagat teachers on the influence of KPJPL to the enrichment of their mother tongue. Proceedings of the International Conference of Communication Science Research (ICCSR 2018). **https://doi.org/10.2991/iccsr-18.2018.63&nbsp**;

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