Official Website of Philippine Senator Pia Cayetano

Category: Futures Thinking

  • Pia Cayetano Urges Great Caution on Full Online Classes, Warns CHED of Impact on Students and Learning Gaps

    Pia Cayetano Urges Great Caution on Full Online Classes, Warns CHED of Impact on Students and Learning Gaps

    Statement on the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) policy allowing  higher education institutions (HEIs) to shift to 100% online classes amid the fuel and power crisis

    Families are experiencing difficulties because of the ongoing global fuel and power crisis. These are not easy times, and government agencies, including our education institutions, are being asked to adapt quickly.

    CHED’s move to allow schools to shift to 100% online classes is clearly intended as a temporary solution to ensure learning continuity while supporting energy conservation efforts.

    As Senior Vice Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance, where I handled the education budget for six years, and as a former EDCOM II Commissioner, I feel strongly that we must approach this challenge with great caution.

    Recent assessments show that learning gaps remain a serious concern across the education system, and with any shift in modality, we must first ensure that our students are truly learning. 

    We cannot ignore the risk that prolonged or widespread reliance on fully online modalities may further widen existing learning gaps, especially for students who may not have equal access to technology, stable connectivity, or a conducive learning environment at home.

    Moreover, there is a real concern that what is intended as a temporary measure may gradually become normalized. We saw this emerge after the pandemic, when emergency learning modalities persisted longer than necessary. We must be vigilant to ensure that this does not happen again.

    We also cannot forget that face-to-face learning remains essential, not just for academic outcomes, but for discipline, engagement, and overall development. This is why we must carefully balance the need to respond to the crisis with our responsibility to protect our students’ learning experience.

    I urge CHED and all HEIs to establish concrete benchmarks, including measurable learning outcome indicators and a defined review timeline, so that this policy remains a genuine emergency measure and does not quietly become the new standard.

  • Preparing PH for the futures of education

    By Senator Pia S. Cayetano
    Chair, Committee on SDGs, Innovation, and Futures Thinking

    I rise today to report on and sponsor the findings and recommendations of the Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, Innovation and Futures Thinking, jointly with the Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture, under Committee Report No. 643, on the Futures of Education.

    This Committee Report examines the country’s current situation, problems, aspirations, and gathers the recommendations of experts and stakeholders during the Committee’s hearings and further study, in order to secure the best possible future for education. Interestingly, the pandemic gave us the opportunity to invite foreign experts who attended our hearings online.

    Mr. President, we have filed a lengthy committee report, and also prepared a detailed sponsorship speech, but in the interest of time, I will just be quoting certain highlights of the Committee Report.

    Like many countries around the world, we remain stuck in the factory model of education, a one-size-fits-all model that merely gauges the worth of students according to their test scores. The ideal future of education must instead value, recognize, and hone the individuality of each learner.

    According to Dr. Peter Bishop, Founder and Executive Director of Teach the Future in Houston, Texas, “most educators and the society at large believe that the mission of education is to transmit knowledge and experience” to the next generations.

    However, he noted that this view means that… “knowledge and experience is useful only to the extent that [what] the students [will] have in the future is the same as the world of the past” but in fact, “much of what schools teach their learners might actually be irrelevant if the world of the future is not the same as the past.”

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  • Key gov’t agencies back Sustainable Cities bill

    Key government agencies expressed their support to Senator Pia S. Cayetano’s proposal to transform the country’s urban centers into sustainable communities that are better equipped for all kinds of future scenarios, including new pandemics and major disasters.

    The Senate Committee on Urban Planning, Housing, and Resettlement conducted a hearing on Wednesday (July 1) to discuss, among others, Cayetano’s Senate Bill No. (SBN) 65, or the ‘Sustainable Cities & Communities Act.’

    Filed last year, the bill seeks to support local governments in transforming their respective localities into sustainable communities. This will be undertaken by ensuring access to basic social services, renewable energy sources, efficient waste management systems, and reliable mass transportation.

    “Studies show that survival of the people really lies on the sustainability of their community,” said Cayetano, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Innovation, and Futures Thinking

    “When I drafted this bill, a pandemic was not in my mind, but our targets for our SDGs. Now, it is very clear that we need to prepare for all possible future scenarios,” she noted.

    Cayetano said the proposal complements the country’s commitments to the United Nations’ (UN) SDGs agenda, particularly Goal 11, which seeks to make cities and human settlements “inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable” by 2030.

    Urban Planning Committee Chair Sen. Francis Tolentino described Cayetano’s bill as “very timely,” especially since COVID-19 has highlighted the need for policy and infrastructural reforms to address the “mounting problems in our urban sustainability programs.”

    “Sustainability transcends this contagion. And we must look for solutions. More than ever, we have to review and recalibrate our approach on urban development,” Tolentino stressed, citing data estimating more than half of the world’s population will live in urban centers by the year 2050.

    Tolentino also suggested that education and the right to adequate housing be included as key targets in creating sustainable cities and communities under the bill.

    Meanwhile, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Secretary Eduardo Del Rosario said SBN 65 will help enable the agency to assist different cities and municipalities in crafting their respective land use and development plans.

    “DHSUD fully supports Senate Bill No. 65… [It] will further support the efforts of the national government… in fine-tuning and strengthening the crafting of the Comprehensive Land Use Plans of all municipalities and cities nationwide,” Del Rosario stated.

    Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Tonisito Umali meanwhile said that the agency “completely agrees” with the objectives of SBN 65, and how education will fit in the model for sustainable cities and communities, as articulated in the bill’s provisions.

    Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Ricojudge Echiverri also said SBN 65 will further promote local autonomy and community empowerment, which is one of the agency’s mandates.

    “The department has been implementing programs and projects to promote sustainable communities at the local level. Thus, we manifest nothing but support for this measure,” Usec. Echiverri said. #

  • Strategic foresight needed for future of education

    Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Innovation, and Futures Thinking Chair Pia S. Cayetano on Thursday reiterated the importance of strategic foresight in crafting policies that will help the education sector prepare for all possible scenarios in the new normal and beyond.

    Cayetano said a clear proof of the importance of Futures Thinking in the sector is the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) initiative a few years ago to develop 132 self-learning modules on science and math subjects for grade schoolers.

    DOST’s Science Education Institute (DoST-SEI) director Dr. Josette Biyo shared details of this initiative during the Senate Committee on Basic Education hearing. She said the modules were conceptualized before the pandemic four years ago, and were developed in a span of two years.

    Following consultations with educators, experts, and DepEd officials, the Institute was able to develop modules, transform them into scripts, and digitize them for animation. Teachers were also trained to use the modules, which the agencies made sure would fit the K-to-12 curriculum.

    “We had to tap expert teachers to conduct workshops, write lesson plans, recheck lesson plans, and transform these modules into scripts that have been digitized. After digitization, we validated it. Then in coordination with DepEd, we implemented these coursewares’ [effectiveness] in 20 schools nationwide,” Dr. Biyo shared with the panel.

    Dr. Biyo said the self-learning modules for Grades 1 to 8 were already uploaded via DepEd’s learning platform, whereas the lessons for Grades 9 to 10 have yet to be digitized. The two agencies are also discussing plans to develop radio programs for learners in far-flung areas.

    Cayetano, in response, commended the DOST-SEI for its strategic foresight in preparing these materials early on, stressing that planning for the future of education indeed requires years of preparation and consultations with experts.

    “I want to emphasize – in all fairness to the professionals and officials from DepEd and DOST – that it is really difficult to do this overnight. Obviously, there was a plan and a foresight. All the people who decided to put this together need to be acknowledged for their effort,” the senator said.

    “We can now focus our efforts on the other aspects that have not been touched. Since we already have science and math modules up to the 8th grade, maybe we can focus our attention on the remaining grades. Perhaps the private sector can also be tapped to help with this,” she added.

    In relation to the future of education beyond the new normal, Cayetano expressed support for bills pending at the committee level, particularly Senate Bills 1460 (Basic Online Learning and Distance Education Act of 2020) and 1565 (Education in the New Normal Act).

    She said she recognizes the intention of the proposals, which is to put in place the proper standards for distance education and innovative learning methods when crisis would disrupt our education system.

    The former chair of the Senate Committee on Education, Cayetano sponsored Republic Act No. 10650 or the Open Distance Learning Act, which institutionalized distance learning in tertiary education way back in 2014. #

    Senator Pia S. Cayetano said a good example of Futures Thinking is the Department of Science and Technology’s initiative four years ago to develop 132 self-learning modules on science and math subjects for grade schoolers.