Eastern Visayas answers call to improve teaching-learning outputs

The Department of Education (DepEd) in Regions 8 today launched the Science
Mentoring Program to train selected teachers across the region to improve their
competency in teaching physics and biology.
"Our teachers' continuous education to upgrade their teaching skills has a direct
impact on the kind of public school graduates we produce," said Education Secretary
Jesli Lapus.

Seventeen physics teachers and an equivalent number of biology teachers were
recently trained to improve their teaching skills in content and delivery. These
mentors will in turn share their knowledge and experiences with other science
teachers in their respective DepEd divisions.
The mentoring program is based on Project Turn (Turning Around Low Performance
in English) and the National English Proficiency Program (NEPP) of DepEd.
For its part, the Science Education Institute (SEI) of the Department of Science and
Technology (DOST) donated laptops and printers to teachers worth over P1.5 million
pesos. A turn-over ceremony was held during the 33rd Founding Anniversary
celebration of DepEd Region 8 in Palo, Leyte. Director Ester Ogena of DOST-SEI
handed over the units to the teachers.

Earlier, Lapus directed all DepEd offices to review the results of the NAT and initiate
programs that will improve the achievement levels of their students. One such
program is the Project Turn.
“We immediately got our heads together to craft a program to comply with the
Secretary’s directive,” shared DepEd Region 8 Director Sol Matugas.
DepEd and DOST have an earlier agreement to deploy DOST-SEI scholars to
secondary schools nationwide. Upon completion of their degree course, the
scholars are required to render four years of service in public high schools in their
respective home regions as part of their service obligation.
Since school year 2002-2003, there have been 957 teacher items allocated to
DOST-SEI scholars. In 2007, DepEd created more than 16,000 teacher items, the
highest number in years.

Project TURN is a program focused on improving the competency in English of both
teachers and students in 1,898 schools identified to have low performance on the
subject based in the 2007 National Achievement Test.