Forty teachers complete anti-child labor course

CEBU, Philippines – Forty teachers from the different Philippine Time-Bound Programs completed their training series on ABK2 Pag-Aaral ng Bata para sa Kinabukasan (Education for the Children’s Future).    

ABK2 initiative targets the six priority sectors of PTBP for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor (WFCL).

This includes children in deep-sea fishing, commercial sexual exploitation, domestic work, pyrotechnics, mining and quarrying and sugarcane plantations.

ABK2 is the second phase of the ABK initiative, which was led by World Vision Development Foundation and founded by the United States Department of Labor in 2003.

It is a special project for combating child labor through education in the Philippines.

For the second phase of this project, ABK goes by the slogan TEACh Now! (Take Every Action for Children Now!) to emphasize the urgent action needed to help our children working in the worst forms of child labor.

The teacher participants for the said teacher training series were selected from the priority areas identified with a high prevalence of WFCL.

ABK2 education specialist Flora Arellano said that the teacher training series was organized according to contiguous geographical areas and was done from December 2008 to May 2009.

Arellano also said that based on the National Statistics Office survey four million Filipino children aged five to 17 years old are economically active, 2.4 million of them were exposed to hazards.

About two million Filipino children engaged in child labor work between one to four hours a day, 1.3 million of the Filipino working children worked from five to eight hours a day and 360,000 worked for more than eight hours per day.

One-third of working children, or 1.3 million, did not attend school.

Arellano also pointed out that in between last December and this month, teacher participants engaged in practicum to apply lessons learned in the training to their respective school or community learning centers and conduct workshops in their respective community among the teachers within the target sites for replication.

The overall objective of the said program is for the teachers to gain a deeper understanding of the child labor issue and how education becomes an important program intervention.

The Teacher Training Series hopes to produce core teachers with a comprehensive framework, dedication and skills that will enable them to navigate and apply their learning to different contexts of the child and the school system even beyond ABK2 Initiative project life.

It is expected that the full swing of implementation begins this school year 2009-2010 and will be monitored by education specialists and school administrators for problems, issues or benefits derived from the said application.

At the last quarter of the project life, the teacher training series will be evaluated based on the impact or progress it brings to quality education for the working children they serve and even to the quality of the teachers who engaged in the project.

Yesterday a commencement exercise for the teachers was held at the DepEd Ecotech Center where in one of the guest was Secretary of Education Jesli Lapus.

Lapus said he supports this program as it will withdraw kids from exploitive labor.

“Malayo pa ang gagawin dito…this teacher will also train other teachers and it is important that the department will support this program,” Lapus said. — Johanna T. Natavio/BRP (THE FREEMAN)