City ETA brings organic

farming to senior high

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Feb 8 (PIA)—Creativity and a bit of innovative tweaking, and the Department of Education’s (DepED) Tagbilaran City Schools Division does what most have failed: bringing back the students to the farms.

“It may not be as big yet, but of the 73 graduates in the strand last year, about 30 of them proceeded to take agriculture courses at the Bohol Island State University in Bilar, or at the Leyte State University in Leyte,” reports Manga National High School Master Teacher I Pablita Cabarles during the recent Kapihan sa PIA.

MNHS is the City Division’s pilot area for its Senior High School Agriculture and Fisheries strand billed as Eskwela Turo Agricultura (ETA).  

While everyone is worried with the dwindling number of young people choosing to go into farming, which has led to fewer food supplies to feed a growing population, the DepEd, in fact saw this and integrated agriculture and fisheries in its technology and livelihood education for Grades IV-to VI.

But even then, Education Supervisor Joseph Barrete of the Dr, Cecilio Putong National High School (DCPNHS) found that the elementary curriculum is not contextualized and localized as to the needs of Bohol.

He said, Tagbilaran City for example has nine barangays and the curriculum does not even talk about fisheries, only agriculture.

Speaking as guest to the weekly Kapihan Sa PIA over DyTR, Barrete who coordinates for the Technology and Livelihood Education, Edukasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan and Technical Vocational Education Training for the City Division, said they gathered all TVE, EPP and TVET instructors and with government agencies concerned, and reviewed the DepED Curriculum.

Finding the anomaly, they integrated contextual and local needs for the kids to find the curriculum relevant to their communities, based also on relevant department orders.

The redesigned curriculum has in it some basic crops identification and had kids getting better that the high school curriculum is next.

We need to make a program that allows continuity of the city division redesigned program and put in the course equivalent to a national certification II for crop production leading to organic agriculture in the agri-fisheries strand in the senior high school, he added.

With barely enough space to pilot-run an agri-fisheries course in Tagbilaran, the City Division worked on a classic urban example of farming in a limited space in Manga National High School (MNHS).

MNHS is the logical choice: it is also a school beneficiary of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), and is getting training from the government agency.

Perched on the hillsides of ElleyHill, MNHS sits on a rocky outcrop with hardly a flat farm surface, but the fruit of the agriculture curriculum is evident, relays Master Teacher Pablita Cabarles.

Cabarles, who coordinates for the agriculture strand also admits the DA ATI helped a lot, the technologies they test at MNHS all proved useful, Barrete revealed.

We partnered with ATI and even cascaded to all city schools the redesigned curriculum, which was also validated by school supervisors in the country, Barrete, who also keeps a small patch of farm in Lindaville and a bigger one in Bahi Alburquerque went on.

Right now, we tend to benefit from the DA ATI partnership as the school has slowly become an agriculture and fisheries learning area, shared Cabarles, who added that they are now opening a bigger tilapiahan in the school complex.

We used to have urban gardening integrated in our school in a garden and we tweaked it again to edible landscaping and put in edibles, ornamentals and herbs in the landscaping design in all city schools. The results were again novel, Barrete said.

That was when we started formally putting up Eskwela Turo Agricultura (ETA), the packaged special course for senior high taking up the agriculture strand, the farmer teacher added. 

Children who see how the tilapia in the school pond have grown, are asking their parents to provide in their home lots, areas where they can plant or culture fish.

Now that MNHS is leading the way and other City District Schools are following, there is but just one more thing to do: bring the curriculum outside the City Division.

For Barrete, who is now monickered “Father of Eskwela Turo Agricultura, the task may be daunting, but with his commitment, passion and the dire need to help supply food, he is taking the mission, one division at a time. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)   

GETTING KIDS TO FARM. Through the city Division’s implemented Eskwela Turo Agrikultura (ETA), education authorities are seeing more and more kids proceeding to agriculture related courses, thanks to a special tweaking of the DepED curriculum now implemented in city schools, says Education Supervisor Joseph Barrete and Master Teacher Pablita Cabarles. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)