Many people have asked me “After your students graduate from your Goducate literacy program, where do they go?” This is a very needful question to ask, seeing that we presently have almost 1000 undocumented alien children (ie, illegal immigrants) in our Goducate literacy programs in East Malaysia. As almost all of these kids are originally from the Philippines or descendants of Filipinos, we hope to help them to get an education that will allow them to go back to the Philippines to finish their education and hopefully get gainful employment there or in other countries.
We hope that all our graduates who have already learned to read and write and mastered elementary mathematics will be able to continue their education through a program that has been developed by the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd). This system called “Alternative Learning System” (ALS) was developed because only 65% of Filipinos who enter Grade 1 finish Grade 6 and only 45% finish high school. A major reason for this is poverty and the need for children to help earn income for their families. Many children in farming communities are pulled out of school by their families to help during harvest season, and are then unable to return to school because they have fallen out of the formal schooling system.
ALS allows children to catch up according their own abilities and diligence using modules produced by DepEd. These modules are made available in soft-copy for the user to download. Past experience has shown that matured students can cover much ground at great speed because of their motivation, more matured minds and prior non-formal learning experiences. For example, one of our Goducate students was able to go from illiteracy to Grade 9 in just over a year!
ALS students can take DepEd approved tests that qualify them for a Philippine nationally recognized high school diploma, which will allow them to apply for college entry.
Our dream is to see our first Goducate student from Sabah enter a college in the Philippines in the near future. A kind Filipino businesswoman has promised to sponsor Goducate students who gain entry into college.
The dream of helping every poor child get a decent education is fast becoming a reality!
i was a product of altenative learning system . there was an a.l.s in our place and then i took a.l.s . each passing day i realized that everyone has the rights to study college . and then we had an exam last october 2009 held at victorino mapa highschool …! i didn’t expect that i would passed the examination on v. mapa ..! i am so grateful to i studied in an ALTERNATIVE LEARNING SYSTEM .!
It’ll be amazing when a Goducate kid enters into a national college. I’ve never heard anything like this before!
Heartening to know that the Goducate literacy programme is not the be-all and end-all in itself, that the students have the longer-term prospect of getting back into mainstream higher education
Yes.. we also beleive that through GODUCATE and ALS ,, more child will face a brighter future. And not only children but even out of school youth and mothers as well, as we also have it here in Philippines..