Leyte mobile teachers trained on journalism

PALO, Leyte, Dec. 7 (PNA) -- The Department of Education in Leyte (DepEd) has trained 40 mobile teachers under the Alternative Learning System (ALS) unit on journalism.

Roberto Mangaliman, ALS education program specialist at Leyte division office, said the three-day journalism workshop that concluded on Saturday is aimed at enhancing mobile teachers' capacity to document important activities in the lives of their students and stakeholders.

"Our long term goal is to produce and maintain a website, a quarterly newsletter and yearly magazine issues for our ALS advocacy. Through this, we can also improve our communication mechanism to reach out to our clientele and to our partner agencies in terms of generating program support and funding," said Mangaliman.

"This will be the first in the region," he added.

Journalism topics introduced during the recently-concluded workshop were news writing, editorial writing, feature writing, editorial cartooning, lay-outing, sports writing, photojournalism, online writing, plagiarism, and publication management.

"With your publication, you can touch the lives of your stakeholders at the same time ask their support. You can be a champion in their respective lives. Your works will be remembered, and the document you made will tell on what you have contributed," Mangaliman told the participants.

Mangaliman said they needed more support particularly from local government units (LGUs) in the promotion and implementation of their programs.

"Based on a survey consolidated by LGUs in the province, Leyte has over 60,000 out-of-school youths and adults, yet we have only catered to 20,000 plus to date. We are still looking for the 40,000," he said.

The Leyte Division ALS unit has 120 regular-permanent teachers and 171 volunteer teachers under 'Abot Alam' where each of them is handling a minimum of 75 learners, Mangaliman added.

"Our highest priority is total eradication of illiteracy in the province, yet we need more budget allocation in our ALS programs," he said.

According to Mangaliman, some of their challenges include how to maintain the support for their programs and projects to the indigenous tribes in Leyte.

"We have learners coming from Mamanwa tribe at barangay Kagbana in Burauen, and Badjao at barangay Dolho in Bato, and in Isabel, Leyte. With our indigenous people education, we try to promote their language and beliefs to maintain their ancestral domain or way of life."

"I am thankful of this training. This will help me a lot in my daily encounter with my learners," said Jake Laurence, 30, the newly-inducted Leyte ALS editor-in-chief and a mobile teacher assigned at Abuyog Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail.

International aid agencies Intersos and Unicef have also given support to the said DepEd journalism workshop. (PNA)
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