At a time of great difficulty and challenges, many schools and educators rose to the challenge of providing holistic and enriching learning for students across the country.
For Rex Education and the Commission on Higher Education, these heroic actions deserve the spotlight and must be acknowledged, thus prompting the creation of the Gawad Edukampyon Awards 2021 that aims to celebrate innovations and excellence by higher education institutions (HEIs) during the most challenging period in recent history.
“I encourage all HEIs to join the Gawad Edukampyon and showcase your innovations. It is during these challenging times that we must empower and inspire each other, draw strength and learn from one another,” said CHED chairperson Prospero de Vera.
The awards, organized in partnership with the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), is driven by CHED’s #WeLearnAsOne Bayanihan efforts and Rex Education’s Edukampyon advocacy.
“The Edukampyon agenda lobbies that as members of the community, everyone is part of this learner-centered solution, and are thus duty bearers morally obliged to support initiatives that will benefit our learners. We acknowledge that the efforts to realize the vision of Edukampyon is continuously growing. We may be at the very first steps of this years-long movement. But taking the first step is always the most crucial moment in every revolution,” said Don Timothy Buhain, CEO of Rex Education.
“With the help of every HEI and of everyone, we hope that this first step leads to a march where we create more programs and campaigns that would allow us to be champions for the Whole Filipino Learner. And we hope Gawad Edukampyon Awards 2021 will lead that way,” he added.
There are four categories under the Gawad Edukampyon Awards.:
The Gawad Edukampyon for Excellence in Flexible and Responsive Management will be given to HEIs that created policies or implemented specific projects and practices that ensured the continuity of education, as well as the health, safety, and well-being of students, faculty, staff, and school-community.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Excellence in Flexible Teaching and Learning Innovation will be given to HEIs with exemplary innovative and adaptive learning approaches and solutions, including innovative platforms, tools, pedagogies, and appropriate learning assessments; efforts to promote learner-centered teaching; technology-enhanced or arts-based learning; setting up mobile open online courses (MOOCs); or creating significant reforms in the curriculum to accommodate the changes in the delivery of learning.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Responsive Research and Development will be given to HEIs with outstanding research and development of products that significantly contributed to the community through research and materials dissemination to other LGUs or other HEIs, as well as researches that have been used as an input to public policy or adopted into a local community project, and case assessments or action-research that can improve the government’s COVID-19 response.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Public Service and Community Engagement will be given to HEIs with outstanding outreach projects that alleviated challenges experienced by their community because of COVID-19.
Two winners will be awarded for each category – one from the public sector and another from
the private sector. Each award category winner will receive a cash prize and an educational resources package worth P200,000. The narratives of all winners will be featured in the Rex Education-led publication, Padayon.
“[There is] no going back to the traditional, full-packed, face-to-face classrooms. The Commission has adopted a policy that flexible learning will continue in the school year 2021 and thereafter,” said De Vera.
All HEIs who wish to participate in the Gawad Edukampyon Awards can now submit their letter of intent (LOI) signed by the HEI head or authorized representative to edukampyonsecretariat@gmail.
For the full mechanics on how to join, and to access the forms, application information, and other updates, you may visit Gawad Edukampyon on Facebook, head to the link bit.ly/GawadEdukampyon, or contact the Gawad Edukampyon secretariat at edukampyonsecretariat@gmail.