Boosting class mastery for career advancement

The late Salvador “Sonny” Escudero III, who served as secretary of agriculture and a member of the House of Representatives, once said that career advancement was often slow for the better teachers and they were often overlooked when it was time for recognitions and awards.

The problem is not always political patronage or palakasan, a common practice in the Philippines.

Escudero, who was a professor and dean of the University of the Philippines (Los Baños, Laguna) College of Veterinary Medicine and a strong advocate for education, explained that such exemplary teachers were often so dedicated to their work that they could hardly find time or were reluctant to leave the classroom to pursue graduate and postgraduate studies or attend seminars and conferences that were often the bases for promotion.

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Fortunately, there are groups that have started to do something for them.

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One is the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation (GBF), whose chair, Lance Gokongwei, highlights the crucial role teachers can play in “shaping the future of learners.”

“GBF hopes to help address science specialization gaps through targeted upskilling, so that more teachers are equipped with stronger content knowledge, practical teaching strategies and renewed confidence in the classroom,” GBF general manager Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng added.

GBF, said executive director Grace Colet, was premised on the belief that education had the power to change not just individual lives but the nation’s own destiny.

For GBF, investing in teachers was a key strategy for improving student learning outcomes. Its educator programs thus focus on strengthening content mastery and pedagogy through various complimentary interventions. 

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One example, the GBF Class Builder, is a proprietary education technology solution that provides teachers with free, high-quality instructional resources.

A total of 41,000 teachers across 6,000 schools have been onboarded to GBF Class Builder in eight regions.

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Through a Reading Remediation component, as well as Mathematics resources, educators have access to ready-to-use lesson plans, slides, and worksheets designed to support more effective classroom instruction.

The GBF STEM Collab is a nationwide learning community where educators can access free expert-led learning sessions and resources, and peer discourse on relevant topics and strategies they can apply in the classroom. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a major focus of GBF’s education initiative.)

The Collab now has 380,000 participants in its webinars, making it “the biggest online community of STEM teachers nationwide,” according to GBF.

In 2025, its ARAL Remediation Series reached more than 209,000 live participants, the biggest virtual audience for teacher training to date. 

GBF’s TeachSTEM Scholarship program develops and supports Filipino STEM educators through scholarships and targeted professional  development.

The TeachSTEM Certificate Program is designed to fill teacher-subject specialization gaps by giving public school teachers opportunities to deepen their subject knowledge and strengthen their instructional skills through certificate courses delivered by university partners.

Partner schools

The foundation has partnered so far with Centro Escolar University and schools division offices of the cities of Navotas, Marikina and Mandaluyong in the National Capital Region to support 48 Math teachers for the Certificate Course in Math Teaching.

GBF has also partnered with the University of Santo Tomas, 

together with the Schools Division Offices of the cities of Quezon, Caloocan, Muntinlupa and Pasig, to support 100 public school teachers through a Certificate in Science Teaching.

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The foundation continues to work with the Department of Education–National Educators Academy of the Philippines (DepEd NEAP) to provide professional development opportunities for teachers, including learning sessions that can be credited as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) units. —WITH A REPORT FROM LAU BACIA INQ