The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) sealed partnerships with various organizations to ensure an efficient roll-out of the different projects under the K to 12 Transition Program. The ceremonial signing of the memorandum of agreement was on 6 June 2016, 4pm at the Higher Education Development Center (HEDC) Building. In attendance were Kalibrr, Edukasyon PH, and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). These separate collaborations are intended to make processing of scholarships and grants faster and responsive to the needs of the higher education institutions (HEIs) faculty and staff.
L-R: DBP Senior Vice President Antonio Owen S. Maramag, CHED Chairperson Patricia B. Licuanan, Kalibrr CEO Paul Rivera, and Edukasyon PH Founder Henry Motte Munoz
“This is the manifestation of our commitment to the educational reform. We’re coming together in order to mitigate some of the challenges in the K to 12 transition. I have complete faith that we need each other,” said Dr. Patricia B. Licuanan, CHED Chairperson.
Kalibrr is an online job-matching and recruitment platform whose mission is to transform the way candidates find jobs and companies hire talent, by delivering a faster, smarter, and more sophisticated way of job matching. Kalibrr sees sharing its expertise and knowledge as a moral obligation towards the country. It will provide support as the temporary online matching tool for the Sectoral Engagement Grants, a component of the Instruction, Research, and Sectoral Engagement (IRSE) Grants. It will aid in ensuring that the IRSE grantees will be assigned to the ideal sectoral partners. This enables the grantees to easily review and choose from almost a hundred partners from industry, civil society, and government sectors. Likewise, the screening and assessment of grantees become more streamlined for the sectoral partners.
“CHED needed an efficient way to connect the professors with opportunity. So, Kalibrr in partnership with CHED helped develop the platform that allows us to do this without paper and to do it with technology and make it a seamless, efficient, and modern process,” said Paul Rivera, Kalibrr CEO.
Edukasyon PH is a go-to source of information on educational opportunities both locally and internationally. With its partnership with the Scholarships for Graduate Studies, it will provide an avenue for delivering higher education institutions (DHEIs) to promote the degree programs they offer for scholarships. Edukasyon PH is like a one-stop portal for HEI faculty and staff to check available degree programs they can apply to.
“We worked many, many nights and weekends. And we are really impressed by the diligence and speed of the team. Congratulations! You are very well helped,” said Henry Motte Munoz, Edukasyon PH Founder.
DBP will help ensure an efficient disbursement of financial support for all grantees and scholars. They will be issued DBP Prepaid Cards individually so that the disbursement of funds will be done directly to them, eliminating possible delays in fund transfer.
“It was good to be part of this program in some way or the other. And to finally see the fruition of the complete efforts that CHED is doing to help alleviate some of the difficulties in the transition program that, really I agree, the country badly needs,” said Antonio Owen S. Maramag, DBP Senior Vice President.
The implementation of the K to 12 is seen as a reform with efforts not exclusive to the Department of Education (DepEd), but encompasses the whole landscape of the Philippine education and labor. It brings unique impact on each sector; therefore a collective action is expected. CHED does all efforts following the commitment to provide support for HEIs faculty and staff during this transition period. This includes the collaboration across sectors which will also contribute to the successful shift to a stronger education system in the future.
CHED K to 12 Transition Program 