By Joycel Lagrio, STRATCOM Correspondent

As part of its extension program on empowering and upgrading basic education teachers’ competencies and innovativeness, the MMSU Graduate School organized a gender-sensitivity training workshop on April 4 at Caraitan Integrated School (CIS) in Badoc.

Dubbed “Usapang Karapatan: e-nobasyon para sa Edukasyon,” the activity is part of the “WAKE UP: Paggamit ng Wika sa mga Aralin, Kultura at Wastong Estruktura paghusayin at pagyamanin: mga Usapang Gender at Panitikan galugarin at dalumatin,” an extension project led by Dr. Nelie Salvador.

The activity, an expansion of previous successful initiatives held at Bacarra National Comprehensive High School and Bangui National High School, aims to capacitate secondary education teachers on sex, gender, and crafting instructional materials for interactive activities in the classroom to uplift the quality of the teaching-learning process.

“This is a response to the identified needs of teachers during previous assessments and training. What started as a Filipino-centered initiative has now expanded into a cross-disciplinary effort,” Dr. Salvador explained.

The first workshop of the extension project featured topics on the basic concepts of sex, gender, and sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, and sex characteristics; creating safe and nurturing learning environments; promoting gender-fair messages in education; using suprasegmentals and morphology to convey gender and development (GAD)-related meanings; and analyzing pragmatic-syntactic aspects of gender issues in selected advertisements.

MMSU gender and language experts served as speakers: Ms. Nataliza Llapitan, Gender and Development Focal Point System chief; Prof. Marjorie Garcia, Socioeconomic, Technopreneurship, and Partnership chief; Dr. Alma Sierra; Dr. Djoanna Pungtilan; and Dr. Janet Rivera. High school teacher Mary Claire Belong also led a discussion during the event.

Present at the event were the teachers of CIS, led by Dr. Maricon Agpoon, School Principal I, along with faculty members from the Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics and the Master of Arts in Education major in Wika at Panitikan programs at MMSU. The activity was also graced by Dr. Ursino Pascua, Chief Education Supervisor of the Schools Division Office of Ilocos Norte.

Aside from the workshop, the two institutions formalized their two-year commitment to continuous workshops and development activities on the sustained and meaningful integration of GAD principles across various subjects. MMSU President Virgilio Julius P. Manzano, Jr., represented by Vice President for Academic Affairs Aris Reynold Cajigal, and Dr. Agpoon signed the memorandum of agreement.

Under the MoA, both institutions agreed to jointly strengthen teachers’ skills in assessment and language instruction, motivate learning through innovative strategies, enhance the quality of the teaching-learning process, appreciate literary genres, and develop and validate learning materials in Ilokano, Filipino, and English.

The extension project will also consist of two more activities, set to be implemented in the following months of 2025.

#MMSU#SUCCEEDMMSU

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