Mainstreaming Intercultural Education
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Mainstreaming Intercultural Education Leah Enkiwe-Abayao College of Social Sciences, Government Park Road, University of the Philippines — Baguio, Baguio City 2600, The Philippines. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Higher Education Policy (2005) 18, 409–411. doi:10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300101
Introduction This case study will briefly talk about a continuing intercultural program of the University of the Philippines – Baguio. It is a modest attempt to put in perspective a working program as an approach to intercultural education in the northern Philippines setting. This study will cover the emergence of the program, the changes it underwent to suit conditions and focus on how the program can be situated in intercultural education. The program under study is the Educational Assistance Program (EAP) of the University of the Philippines – Baguio. It started in 1982 as an academic outreach program to incoming college underprivileged students from the different ethnic communities of the Cordillera region in northern Philippines. It was conceived to provide assistance for a ‘culture-sensitive’ educational experience of various college students coming from different cultural backgrounds. It was also envisioned as a part of the university extension program to enhance the relationship of the university to the communities surrounding it.
Outline of Policy/Practice/Program The EAP was initiated by faculty members of the University of the Philippines in the early 1980s as a University program that will form part of the faculty’s three-track mission: Teaching, Research and Extension. It was realized that there was a need to reach out to the ethnic groups found in the Cordillera region in which the university is geographically located. It was also created in response to the need to provide a mechanism to response to the growing need for a ‘culture-sensitive’ education of students from the marginal communities in the Cordillera region of northern Philippines. Part of the original plan was to provide a venue for students to have access to college education and get courses that they could apply back to their communities.
Leah Enkiwe-Abayao Mainstreaming Intercultural Education
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There were three components of the program: Academic, Psychosocial and Cultural. The Academic component was handled by faculty and the steering committee members. The Psychosocial component was handled by a guidance counselor and the Cultural component was handled by one of the steering committee members in coordination with the guidance counselor. For the academic program, the university had to adjust the courses in order for it to be sensitive to the profile and needs of students coming from different cultural backgrounds, without sacrificing the needs and background of the general student population. Thus, the curriculum was enhancing to address the needs of the students. First, there were courses that were taught separately to the students from the different cultural backgrounds. Then, it was realized that students were not being expos
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