Perfect Combination

If you want to get rich, don’t become a teacher.

This is a sad joke shared around among public high school teachers. Yes it is sad, but its true, at least how most of the teachers see it to be. So you get to wonder why a successful, business-oriented individual quit venturing the rich world of commerce and enter the poverty-stricken world of education.

She is born from a well-off and business – minded family. She studied college in an exclusive girls only college in Cebu City. Her parents wanted for her to take up business course to continue their family business, jewelry trading and some general merchandising store, when the time is right, but her love is in the field of medicine. Her parents stopped supporting her education because she disobeyed them. Being a daughter of a businessman that she is, she continued her college education by selling stuff: from affordable food items to expensive jewelries.

To make the story short, she fell in love, have kids, got married and thus stopped schooling but still continued into jewelry retailing and became successful at it. It just so happen that there are just things that goes perfectly if they get paired with each other. Take for instance, coffee. Coffee is best paired with creamer and not milk. Bread is for butter and that is also why there is Jack and Jill and not Jack and Jane.

The same goes for a person. There are some who are blessed with both beauty and brains. With her, she is benefited with the compassionate heart and the brains and charisma of a sales executive. With these two, she went far in the line of commerce especially in jewelry business.

She is Mrs. Evangeline Maraon: a successful businesswoman with the heart of an educator. Hilaan National High School (HNHS), Bontoc, Southern Leyte is fortunate to have her as their principal. With her, HNHS has received and will be receiving a lot of facility improvements. It is all because of Mrs. Maraon.

Ma’am Vangie, as she is fondly called, left the rich world of business to be a teacher. She has set her eyes and heart set on the welfare of the hope of our nation: the youth especially the students. She uses her business experience and charisma to the local politicians and public figures to establish good relationship. She sells HNHS the way she sells her jewelries.

Sales is a clear indicator if a business is successful. With HNHS, facility improvement is the criteria of success. Despite the fact that HNHS is located 25 kilometers from the highway, with very rough road and going there proves to be an uphill climb., HNHS is chosen as one of the recipients of the iSchools project. Their computer laboratory is with twenty brand new computers, an LCD projector and an Internet connection.

In just a short period of time, HNHS is able to ask funds for the construction of a new computer laboratory. In just a matter of six months, the school has cemented a large portion of their area that is prone to landslide. They were able to ask funds from the governor of the province himself. HNHS has also concreted their canals and is now in the process of putting up a large school name.

With HNHS location, being in remote and mountainous area where government leftists used to camp out, one could say that improvement and project funding would be slow, like a turtle’s walk, if not impossible. But HNHS has proved it wrong, or better said, Mrs. Evangeline Maraon has proved it wrong. There are projects, improvement and still more to come for HNHS. Funds arrived and improvement is fast because HNHS principal just happens to be a businesswoman by nature.

Just like body is to soul, Ma’am Vangie is to Hilaan National High School: perfect combination for the improvement of HNHS.

Getting to know Lando

What’s with the name anyway? Will I die if I don’t get to know him? For me and for you, he is just a nobody. But for Sogod National High School, Lando is a name that they would be proud to know of.

Lando is the nickname of Mr. Rolando C. Timbang. He is the school principal of Sogod National High School (SNHS), Sogod, Southern Leyte. He is born in Cadayunman, Liloan, in the southern part of Leyte. He finished his Bachelor of Science in Education degree, major in History, in Saint Joseph College in Maasin City, Leyte. He is married and is blessed with a daughter who is now a college student.

Before Sir Lando, as students address him, arrived in SNHS, he taught Araling Panlipunan II, English and Pilipino subjects in Himay-angan National High School. While he was finishing his Master’s Degree majoring in Management, he was appointed as an Understudy for Head Teacher, a Supreme Student Counsel Adviser and the President of the Teachers Association. After some time, he was promoted from being an understudy to being a Head Teacher.

His years of experience as head teacher proved to be enough for him to be promoted. It is of no wonder that he is given the responsibility of being the school principal of SNHS. He replaced Mr. Sonny Tayum, then principal of SNHS.

Just like all other new comers, he was greeted in SNHS with gladness for some and contempt for others. He has apprehension in managing the school with a population of more two thousand students, unlike in HNHS whose population barely reach 500. Some has doubts if he could manage the school, while others are confident that he can because of his experience.

Sir Lando believes that problems are just there to spice up life. He faces the challenge of governing SNHS with big faith in God, positive attitude and a happy disposition.

He showed SNHS that he deserve their loyalty and acceptance as their new principal. He led SNHS to achieve regional competitions awards both in academic and sports. He brought outside organizations to give funds to the school and spearheaded facility improvement. He has gained the support of the local government unit as well as the support of the school stakeholders.

He showed Sogod National High School that he can be the angry, forgiving, compassionate, strong and knowledgeable principal that they wanted him to be.

Currently, SNHS is one of the recipients of the iSchools project. The project will provide the school with:

• 19 Desktop computers with LCD monitors

• server with webcam

• laptop

• HP 4-in-1 printer

• Multimedia projector

• Capability training for teachers and students

In return, the school must provide a room to be used as the computer laboratory and as a community e-learning center. Big amount of money and lots of responsibility is involved being a recipient of the project. The entire stakeholder of the school must be involved.

How the iSchools project in Sogod National High School will turn out is in the good hands of Mr. Lando C. Timbang. With his experience and with all the support of the school stakeholder and funding agencies, surely, everything will turn out just fine. Lando is up for the challenge.

2 VSU faculty passed ICDL exam

Visayas State University (VSU) is an implementing university of the iSchools Project of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).

Being a partner school, VSU be sent two instructors from the Department of Computer Science and Technology (DCST) to take the International Computer Driving License (ICDL) exam. It is an Open Source exam that costs around 3,150.00 pesos.

Mr. Michael Jay Anthony B. Regis and Mr. Jude B. Rola took the exam in Carlos Hilado Memorial State College in Negros Occidental on June 20. It they pass, they can be hired as lecturers for the series of trainings that the iSchools project has in store for its recipients.

On July 15, the announcement was made and luckily, they passed the exam.

Currently, VSU has just opened classes for SY 2010-2011. Although the two instructors will be away from their classes, the university made sure that before they left and took the exams, lessons, exercises or assignments are left for the students to work on.

Compromise is always done between VSU and with the iSchools project management. Afterall, these persons are teachers first before they are part of the iSchools project.

Quality education from a distance

Profile story for Hilaan National High School, Bontoc, Southern Leyte

“Five peso more and you are will already reach heaven.”

This is a cliché common to most of the schools located in the mountainous part of the Philippines. With schools in this areas, one could say heaven is almost at the tip of their fingers. One of these schools is Hilaan National High School (HNHS) in Bontoc, Southern Leyte.

Despite the 18-km distance from the highway, HNHS has 358 enrollees where majority of the students still excel academically. Even though it costs almost 100 pesos for the motorcycle fare, HNHS actively participates in the secondary activities organized by Department of Education (DepEd). They do not just participate, they also win.

The distance and the road going to HNHS is both a curse and a blessing. A curse because of the bumpy ride, the rocky roads and the apparent danger because of the cliff on the road sides. Passing through these roads is sometimes next to impossible if there is a heavy rain downpour. At the same time, most of the teachers of HNHS consider the distance as a “blessing” instead.

The location of Hilaan National High School subjects HNHS to be exempted of periodic visits from the regional office of DepEd. Being exempted means lesser expenses and lesser class interruptions as observed by the students and teachers alike. Even though they often get exempted, it does not mean that the quality of their education is of less quality compared to those schools from the city.

In addition to proving the fact that distance is not a hindrance to quality education, HNHS has been chosen as a recipient school of the iSchools project. This project of President Gloria Arroyo is being implemented by the Commission of Information and Communication Technology (CICT) in partnership with the different state universities and colleges of the country. The project gives twenty one computers to the recipient school and an internet connection.

With the internet connection and the state-of-the-art computers given by the iSchools project, HNHS will now be more connected with world. It will not just encourage the students to do better; it will also improve the quality of education.

HNHS, being a recipient of the iSchools project, implementing and sustaining the project itself needs strong leadership to guide the school in this big opportunity. HNHS is lucky to have Ms. Evangeline Maraon as their head teacher. She does not just have the convincing power of a saleswoman; she also has this strong connection with the local government officials. It helps a lot to have a strong rapport especially in asking for financial support. HNHS is also gifted with dedicated and talented teachers.

Strong leader, dedicated teachers and students that excel: these are just but some of the assets of Hilaan National High School. These assets help HNHS to prove to the world that despite the distance, quality education is still at reach. Just like the cliché that heaven is at the tip of the fingertips, so is quality education for HNHS.

Productive clutter

Participants of the 3-day training-workshop, March 18-20, discuss the output for the first workshop, issues and concerns of the iSchools project.

Eastern Visayas State University (EVSU) hosted the 3-day Sustainability Planning and Workshop (SPW) for the iSchools project of CICT, a project under the office of the president. The training is held in Asia Convention Center, Tacloban City.

Participants are the recipient highschools of the project. They are from public high schools of regions 6, 7 and 8.

iSchoolS Partner University: VSU

The Visayas State University (VSU) was formerly known as the Leyte State University (LSU). It was renamed as VSU by virtue of Republic Act No. 9437, which was signed by her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on April 27, 2007.

Currently, VSU is one of the many universities chosen to be a partner university in the implementation of the iSchools project.