DepEd launches Dunong-Gulong (Mobile School) DepEd launches Dunong-Gulong (Mobile

School)

A November 26, 2010 press release prepared by the Department of Education

The Department of Education and UNTV, a private media organization will soon start fielding two buses
equipped with state-of-the art learning tools which will ply the roads of Quezon and Masbate provinces
to bring education to out-of-school youth and adult learners.

Called DepEd-UNTV Dunong Gulong, the two units of bus worth P6.5 million each will have learning
tools, generator for power supply, folding chairs and tables, a toilet and a sleeping quarter. The two
brand-new Hyundai buses will serve as mobile classrooms to bring alternative learning system (ALS) to
illiterates, school drop-outs, indigenous people and those with physical disabilities. It will also carry
programs for adolescents, Muslim migrants, parents and disadvantaged children.

Dubbed Dunong-Gulong, the novel approach to learning-teaching is one of the alternative modes of
delivering education services to learners who are outside the formal school system. It is designed to stay
for a month in the targeted area for the enhanced delivery of learning modules.

Education Secretary Br. Armin Luistro FSC said such initiative is a model of how public-private
partnership can help achieve the government’s goal of making education accessible to all Filipino
learners. “With the support of well-meaning partners such as the Breakthrough and Milestones
Productions International, Inc-BMPI- UNTV, we are making our way towards meeting our Education
For All targets by 2015,” said Luistro.

Under the agreement, the educational component of Dunong-Gulong which include the ALS learning
facilitators and learning modules will be handled by DepEd. For its part, UNTV will shoulder the
maintenance of the bus (driver, gasoline, regular tune-up) as well as the provision of audio-video
equipment, power generator, tables, chairs and public address system.

Meanwhile the local government unit where the buses will be fielded may be tapped to support the
program by way of funding the honorarium of ALS coordinators, the reproduction of learning modules,
and providing security to the learners and the bus.

The Dunong –Sulong initially targets three municipalities and three barangays each in Quezon and
Masbate. It will be launched on November 28, Sunday, 5pm at the Mall of Asia.
TESDA, PAGCOR make skills training within reach with mobile labs
07 January 2015

Another innovative training modality on wheels will soon make pit stops in some of the country's far-flung
communities to provide skills training.

The Mobile Training Laboratories are products of a groundbreaking collaborative project between the
Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and Philippine Amusement and Gaming
Corporation (PAGCOR) to bring technical vocational or tech-voc training programs to barangays of the poorest
provinces as a way of fighting poverty.

With PAGCOR's P50-million donation, 40 mobile labs will soon roll out in provinces initially identified as among
the priority areas for intervention because of the lack of access to technical vocation education.

The project targets to produce 23,100 graduates of various tech-voc courses from these areas.

On January 6, TESDA and PAGCOR formally inked a Memorandum of Agreement to kick off the
implementation of the project.

"Part of the goal is to make tech-voc training a real life experience to many of our youth, and key to making it
happen is to reach out to them," TESDA Director General Joel Villanueva said.

"Many might have heard of tech-voc, but don't know where to find it. If we make them experience it, then they
would realize that they can have a career choice," he added.

PAGCOR chairman Cristino Naguiat Jr. said the project "is all about skills development and workforce
development."

"By teaching young people critical industry skills, the mobile training lab is helping them get a head start on
future careers and making them more attractive for future positions," Naguiat said.

The mobile lab is a compact box loaded on top of a trailer. Four movable boxes will be placed inside the
compact box -- two to three boxes for tools, equipment and training package, and a box for multimedia
equipment and its accessories per area. The compact box when loaded, weighs more or less two tons, which
could be pulled by an ordinary passenger jeepney.

Each mobile lab shall have a complete set of training tools, training specific equipment and sufficient number of
training packages (curriculum, learning materials, assessment tools, mock-ups for a particular training
program) and appropriate multimedia equipment and accessories. These training resources will complement
the available training resources of the tech-voc institutions implementing the training programs in partnership
with the local government units.
The 40 mobile labs that will be initially produced will be delivered to the recipient provinces, which have been
identified among the poorest -- Apayao, Masbate, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Zamboanga del Norte,
Camiguin, North Cotabato, Saranggani, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao. Other provinces will be covered for
the next phase of the project.

"We aim to make the mobile laboratories available in other provinces in the coming months so that access to
tech-voc would be within everyone's reach," Villanueva said.

"The reality is there are towns even in progressive provinces that do not have a single tech-voc school or
college. We hope to be able to fill this gap in the coming months," he added.

A Deed of Donation for the mobile labs will be executed between PAGCOR and the recipient provinces.

Among the training programs to be offered are the following: Appliance Repair, Cellphone Repair, Plumbing,
Electrical Installation & Maintenance, Small Engine Repair, Cookery, Bread and Pastry Production, and Food
Processing.

Villanueva said that with the mobile labs, participants will save on transportation cost, boarding house and
meal allowances.

For every poor disenfranchised youth failing to reach the doorsteps of a tech-voc school, the mobile labs shall
instead knock on 25 doors at one time, bringing a promise of learning and economic empowerment, he said.