Teacher leadership in public schools in the Philippines

Concerns have been raised about the tendency to associate leadership with ascribed authority and position and confining school leadership to the leadership of the principal. Distributed leadership has been proposed and one approach to the distribution of leadership in schools is teacher leadership. Teacher leadership recognises the important contribution of teachers to school improvement and brings to the fore the emergence of excellent teachers who have demonstrated leadership capabilities at the same time.\ud \ud Using an adaptation of the framework of York-Barr and Duke (2004) which linked teacher leadership to student learning, this study explored teacher leadership in public schools in the Philippines. The important role of context in the development and practice of teacher leadership was considered by investigating the contextual conditions that either enabled or constrained teacher leadership practice. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with principals and focus-group interviews with teacher leaders and other teachers from seven public schools in the Philippines.\ud \ud The study found that teacher leadership was a meaningful concept in Philippine public schools even if the term ‘teacher leadership’ has not been introduced formally. Teacher leadership consists of actions undertaken by teachers who respond positively to opportunities to improve teaching and learning. These teachers possess a strong sense of moral purpose and requisite pedagogic and leadership competencies. They help create conditions that support teaching and learning, often in challenging circumstances, in collaboration with colleagues and the school’s leadership.\ud \ud Recommendations from this study include recognising teacher leadership in the country’s education reform agenda, encouraging teacher leaders to accept leadership work and giving attention to development programmes for teacher leaders and principals

Microfinance on Rural Farming Community

Several studies documented the importance of microfinance for agricultural productivity and rural development. In this paper, we described the financing scheme in vegetable production in Barangay Marilog, the main vegetable production area in Davao City. This paper aims to document the issues and outcomes from accessing microfinance credit by groups of smallholder vegetable farmers and draw lessons from their experiences to help improve the access and delivery of microfinance services to farming communities. A case study approach was employed in documenting the experiences of smallholder farmers with information collected from household survey, farming systems survey, and focus group discussions. The results show that farmers sourced financing for their vegetable production from one or a combination of the following: microfinance institution, trader-financier, or informal sources such as relatives and neighbors. However, the sustainability of the microfinance scheme accessed by farmers was blighted with several issues that resulted to farmers’ failure to repay their debt on time. The findings suggest that optimal loanable amount for agricultural loan must be within the needs and capacity of farmers. A simple and realistic business farm plan as one of the requirements in loan application would be essential to assess the borrowing needs of the farmers and their repayment ability. The findings suggest that access to credit is not enough to achieve agricultural productivity; thus, it must be coupled with social preparation through financial literacy and community consultations or meetings to design credit scheme tailored to the social and cultural context of the farming community

Consumer Awareness and Willingness to Pay for Good Agricultural Practices–Certified Vegetables in Davao City, Philippines

The proliferation of foodborne illnesses globally and the increase in dietary concerns of consumers lead to an increased interest on food safety. At the farm level, the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP) ensures all aspects of farming at any point from production to distribution is safely handled and free from microbial and chemical food hazards. This study assessed the consumer awareness and willingness to pay (WTP) for GAPcertified vegetables in Davao City. Vegetables considered in this study were tomato, eggplant, sweet pepper, bitter gourd, squash, and cucumber. Tobit regression model was used to analyze the factors influencing consumers’ WTP for GAP-certified vegetables, employing 235 respondents who were chosen randomly. Results revealed that only 29% were aware about GAP-certified vegetables. Also, majority of the consumers (78%) were willing to pay for GAP-certified vegetables if it is made widely available in Davao City. Moreover, consumers have slightly higher WTP for GAP-certified vegetables when sold in the wet market than in the supermarket. This may be due to the fact that the prices of vegetables sold in supermarkets are at least twice the price of the wet market. The perception that vegetables sold in the supermarket are already safe also lessens the value proposition of GAP-certified vegetables. The results also indicate that consumers were concerned about certain food safety attributes that are also covered under GAP. This study recommends that more efforts should be exerted in promoting GAP-certified vegetables, i.e., employing appropriate information dissemination and increase of production and marketing of GAPcertified vegetables

Outcomes of Extension Activities in the Livelihoods of Smallholder Vegetable Farmers

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, smallholder farmers in the Philippines are among the sectors with the highest poverty incidence. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research had implemented a project to improve smallholder vegetable farmer’s net income and well-being. As part of the intervention, various extension activities were conducted to increase farmers’ livelihood capitals—human, social, financial, physical, and natural. These activities include production, postharvest, and market-related and capability-building trainings. Through the project, facilitation on linkages between farmers and microfinance institutions and different government support offices was done. This paper aims to present the outcomes of those extension activities in the livelihoods of small vegetable farmers and to reflect on several challenges encountered. A case study method and the information derived from preproject and postproject household surveys, focus group discussions, farming systems survey, and trip reports were utilized. Results show that extension activities increased farmers’ technology appreciation, implying improved human and social capitals. But this does not equate to farmer adoption, considering the costs of technology and its applicability. It has also resulted to farmers establishing and strengthening ties between government service providers andfinancing institution, thus increasing financial assets. However, findings reveal that farmers lack social preparation prior to accessing loans that resulted in difficulty in repayment

Measuring learning outcomes of students in service-learning considering diversity and degree of experiences

Although Dan Butin (2011) has been critical of the place of service-learning in higher education institutions as a social movement and an intellectual movement, he actually had opened up four modes of service-learning outcomes of students exposed to this pedagogy that makes it a fertile field for scholarly research in education, in particular, and the social sciences, in general. These modes of learning which he categorized into technical, cultural, political and anti-foundational do not only suggest the diversity of learning that is offered by service-learning, but this typology also points out to the degree or different levels of learning that the students will experience. And this clearly demonstrates the value-adding relevance of service-learning as compared to when students are only exposed to highly conceptual classroom instructions devoid of the experience of applying their knowledge and skills in real life situations by serving while still in school. But given the limited time the students can be engaged with the community, which is certainly dependent upon the disciplines that they are enrolled in and the activities they are doing, there is a need for the teacher to consciously include in the course syllabus what learning outcomes are expected when service-learning engagement will be employed and what corresponding services the students can offer that will enhance classroom instruction. So while service-learning students may be categorized into specialists or generalists according to the services they can offer, they may be also engaged in direct or indirect service-learning depending on the types of people they are working with. These distinctions are necessary because they have implications on the type and amount of learning the students will experience which ultimately determine the grades they will earn from the course. Therefore, this paper examines the importance of what type of learning is expected of students, how much weight is awarded to particular type of learning that the students had demonstrated, and in what ways the learning outcomes will be measured considering the diversity of service-learning experiences of students

Food Safety Concerns of Vegetable Consumers in Davao City, Philippines

Food safety has become a growing concern among vegetable consumers. Studies have shown changes in the purchasing pattern of consumers due to food safety concerns. In developed countries, food quality and safety have become increasingly important attributes being considered due to food-borne diseases. In this paper, we determined the consumers’ level of food safety concern at various stages along the vegetable value chain and analyzed how it affects their purchase patterns. We conducted a mall intercept survey among 240 respondents at two supermarkets in Davao City, Philippines, using a structured questionnaire and organized focus group discussions (FGDs) to triangulate our findings. Slovin’s formula was used to determine the sample size. Results showed that most of the consumers were extremely concerned with the amount of chemicals used in vegetable production, cleanliness of storage conditions, retail and entire market outlet, disposal of waste vegetables, quality of vegetables used in presliced packs, and quality of water used in washing vegetables. Ironically, despite their high level of concern on food safety, particularly on chemical residues, most of the respondents always purchase conventional vegetables and never purchase certified organic vegetables. This can be attributed to the wide price difference of certified organic and conventional vegetables. Based on FGD results, consumers emphasized the importance of certification as an assurance of safety. However, consumers demand that food quality and safety assurance should be delivered at a reasonable price. The challenge for stakeholders in the vegetable supply chains is to reduce the cost of certification while ensuring food safety and traceability along the chain

A Supply Chain Profile of a School-based Feeding Program using the Centralized Kitchen Model

There has recently been renewed interest and a growing demand for school feeding programs. In the Philippines, the government, through the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and non-government organizations such as the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), has initiated such programs to address the prevalence of malnutrition among Filipino school-age children. In 2011, ACED introduced the ACED Blueplate Centralized Kitchen (ABCK) model for large-scale school feeding. This study aims to provide a supply chain profile of the first and largest city-wide implementation of the ABCK model in the Philippines to date, which is fully funded by a local government unit, DepEd, and DSWD. The research considers the crucial internal and external factors that influence the attainment of the program objectives, affect its performance, and promote its overall sustainability using the school feeding supply chain framework