INQskwela goes to Malolos, its 8th LGU partner

ALIGNED FOR EDUCATION A memorandum of agreement for an INQSkwela partnership is signed on July 15 by (from left) Malolos Mayor Christian Natividad, Malolos Schools Division Superintendent Leilani Cunanan, Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) assistant vice president and Inquirer Foundation executive director Connie Kalagayan; and PDI national sales
manager Roy Raul Mendiola. —Carmela Reyes-Estrope

CITY OF MALOLOS, BULACAN, Philippines — Nearly 20,000 public high school students in the city will be kept updated on current events for a deeper appreciation of social studies, improved reading skills and comprehension, and enhanced media literacy through INQskwela, a collaborative project between the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), the City Government of Malolos and the Department of Education (DepEd) Schools Division in Malolos.

A memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the INQskwela partnership with Malolos was signed on July 15 by Mayor Christian Natividad, DepEd-Malolos Division Superintendent Leilani Cunanan, PDI assistant vice president and Inquirer Foundation executive director Connie Kalagayan, and PDI national sales manager Roy Raul Mendiola.

The INQskwela project offers partner schools free access to the InquirerPlus app—the newspaper’s digital version—for it to be used by students and teachers as a supplemental learning material. In Malolos, the partnership will provide InquirerPlus daily to nearly 20,000 students in all the 57 public high schools. Students will have free access through their teachers and school heads, mainly via social media groups specifically created for their lessons.

READ: INQSkwela boosts news literacy, reading skills, partners say

The city government will fund the yearlong subscription. In addition to the partner schools, Malolos City government officials will also receive free access to InquirerPlus.

Malolos, a first-class city in Bulacan province, currently has a total of 48,000 public elementary and high school students, with nearly 20,000 of them in the secondary level.

‘Milestone’ feat

The project hopes to enrich their classroom discussion especially in social studies by keeping students abreast with the news and exposed to insightful commentary, Kalagayan said. It is hoped that in the process, it will also boost their reading proficiency and help them develop journalism skills.

According to Kalagayan, the Malolos partnership comes as a “milestone achievement“ for the program for having the most number of schools covered—57—among INQSkwela’s partner local governments to date.

Malolos is also INQskwela’s eighth LGU partner, Mendiola said. The others are Valenzuela City, Victorias City (Negros Occidental), Baguio City, the City of Manila, San Manuel (Tarlac), Calumpit (also in Bulacan) and Eastern Samar province.

READ: Eastern Samar latest partner of INQskwela

Natividad said the partnership would align with his administration’s initiatives in education, which he said elevated Malolos to being the fifth “most literate local government unit” in the country. It was a dramatic rise considering that in 2010 the city had the highest percentage of dropouts or students with “incomplete” compliance with study requirements.

For the mayor, the INQskwela project can help empower the youth and educators in Malolos, raising their level of engagement in local issues. It also boosts the city’s efforts to be the “smart cultural heritage city of the north” by 2034, a goal recognized by the Department of Science and Technology.

“We take pride in partnering with the Inquirer for the advancement of our youth. (The lessons on) social studies and current events they will gain through this project are also for the enrichment of Malolos, its historical and cultural significance as the birthplace of the First Philippine Republic,” Natividad added.

The mayor announced that four new schools would soon open in the city.

Class opening

The INQskwela project in Malolos will start as the new school year opens on July 29. It targets the holding of a quiz bee for students representing the partner schools at the end of the academic year.

Cunanan, the DepEd-Malolos superintendent, hoped that INQSkwela would not only help local high school students fare better in English and social studies but will also improve their overall academic performance, communication skills and critical thinking.

“These two subjects are considered very challenging among the learning areas,” she said. “Getting a daily boost and extra exposure in these subjects is a level-up measure.”