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Friday, March 29, 2024

Gabay Guro welcomes biggest batch of scholar graduates

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Gabay Guro, the flagship teacher education program of the PLDT-Smart Foundation, recently celebrated the graduation of its 205 scholars in an event called Simpleng Handog. 

The event, with the theme Accelerated, feted the 205 scholars and future educators with 11 graduates grabbing magna cum laude honors and 78 with cum laude. To date, this is the biggest batch of scholar graduates for PSF’s Gabay Guro program.

PLDT-Smart chairman and chief executive Manuel Pangilinan inspired the graduates during the event and highlighted the importance of educators.

Gabay Guro welcomes biggest batch of scholar graduates
This year’s Gabay Guro program has 205 scholar graduates—the biggest batch to date.

“We will continue to consider teachers as agents of transformation, as critical instruments of nation-building. You not only make our students attuned with the digital age, but you also offer hope to our youth. You teach them that dreams can fuel ambition, and ambition needs effort, and effort produces success,” he said.

Pangilinan also emphasized the role of Gabay Guro as a program in equipping future educators with digital skills. “In this time of digital transformation, our responsibility to our students, to our parents, to our people, is to level up the quality of education that can be relevant and useful to the future of our youth, and the way to do that is to be digital,” he said.

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According to Pangilinan, when Gabay Guro was conceived in 2007, the idea was to simply give every teacher an opportunity to be acknowledged and celebrated as an important part of our country’s educational system.

PLDT senior vice president for financial reporting and controllership and Gabay Guro chairwoman Chaye Cabal-Revilla echoed this commitment. “In Gabay Guro, we believe passionately that education is a great equalizer. The ripple effect is even bigger when teachers benefit from higher education. They will pass on what they learn to the generations of students that they will mentor,” she said.

“Simpleng Handog is a time for celebration,” Cabal-Revilla said. “We celebrate all the efforts and hard work of our scholar graduates. We hope that through the PSF and Gabay Guro, their lives have been changed for the better.”

Through the years, Gabay Guro has reached out to thousands of students nationwide to help them achieve their dreams. One such student is 20-year-old Mel Vincent Salera from Cebu Technological University. Graduating cum laude, Salera finished his bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, major in Mathematics.

During his second year in high school, Salera took a leave of absence from studying in order to take care of his grandmother. One day, while he was with his grandmother selling fish in the market, a teacher chanced upon Salera and encouraged him to finish his education. Inspired by the teacher’s genuine kindness, Salera began his dream of becoming a teacher.

“Who would have thought that the boy who used to sell fish in the market is now a cum laude graduate,” Salera said.  “Here I am now fulfilling my dream of becoming a teacher – all thanks to Gabay Guro.” 

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