Last year, the province of Catanduanes was hit by two destructive typhoons one after the other. Super Typhoon Rolly (Goni) and Typhoon Ulysses (Vamco) devastated the province, leaving thousands of people homeless and countless of infrastructure and farmlands destroyed. All these happened while the province was also dealing with the effects of COVID-19.
With a mission to bring lifelong learning to every Filipino home, and in response to the Department of Education’s call for greater stakeholder support under the flagship “Sulong Edukalidad” program, REX sent learning materials worth more than P8.2 million to Virac.
The four truckloads of books were sent out in December as part of REX’s commitment to the unimpeded learning of students from the Virac Pilot Elementary School and the Catanduanes National High School.
The donation consisted of Learning Management System materials from REX, covering Math, Science, Filipino, and Araling Panlipunan. All the learning materials were previously evaluated and certified by the DepEd Bureau of Curriculum Development.
For this initiative, REX Bookstore coordinated with DepEd Region V officials Ma. Cristina Baroso, Regional Partnership Focal Person and Grace Rabelas, OIC of the Curriculum and Learning Management Division in the region.
Baroso and Rabelas were instrumental in the selection of suitable candidate schools based on enrollment data, where Virac Pilot Elementary School has 1,868 pupils, and Catanduanes National High School has 3,930 students.
All donated learning materials were also appropriate to the current mode of teaching since they came with a corresponding HOMES guide. The REX HOMES (Home-based Opportunity for Mentoring Every Student) Guide is a learning companion that covers Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) from DepEd and customizes user experience for parents, students, and teachers. It provides guidance on the use of REX’s printed and online resources for home-based learning; establishes a connection among parents, students and teachers, with a provision where parents can evaluate the child’s performance plus organized tasks and progress reports that are easily viewable.
The learning guide is available for Grades 1 to 12 for five major subjects – Filipino, English, Araling Panlipunan, Mathematics, and Science – and also for Senior High School core and SHS-applied subjects.
Under the supervision of CLMD DepEd Region V, the HOMES guide was evaluated by Master Teachers of the Catanduanes Division. They were all certified to be appropriate and useful, with some adjustments made for better contextualization for Catanduanes.
REX’s donation drive is grounded in its advocacy, which is to ensure that everyone is a champion of education, otherwise known as “Edukampyon.” The company’s Edukampyon initiative calls for everyone – teachers, students, school administrators, parents, guardians, and partners – to ensure that every learner is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, challenged and values-oriented.
Under the initiative is the “Bawat Paaralan, Edukampyon” program, which is a whole range of programs and policies designed to encourage best practices in schools. It is inspired by several movements in other countries that promote whole child or whole school approaches, with the aim of enhancing the foundation of learners for longer-term success.
“It is no longer enough that our children are in school. They should also be healthy and safe. It is no longer enough that they are taught, they should be engaged, supported, and challenged. It is no longer enough that they become responsible adults, they should also be values-oriented,” said REX CEO Don Timothy Buhain.
For more details about REX Bookstore and the Edukampyon initiative, visit www.rexestore.com or www.rex.com.ph
