The Commission on Higher Education and Rex Education have launched the very first Gawad Edukampyon Awards to highlight and recognize the outstanding efforts and resilience of higher education institutions amid the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The inaugural award is an effort to celebrate the achievements and innovations by HEIs in the fields of teaching and learning, research, and public service, and community engagement.
“With Gawad Edukampyon, we hope to celebrate the adaptiveness, innovativeness, and resilience of every higher learning institution, who have been our heroes of education, especially during the most difficult times. We also want to honor the dedication and cooperation of every person, every community, every school, and every organization, moving together for a single cause,” said Don Timothy Buhain, Rex Education CEO.
“We saw different heroes of education rise as we try to put together the winning formula that can create a ‘better normal’ for our learners. We want to spread these stories of hope, through this program, to inspire all,” he added.
Gawad Edukampyon is tied to CHED’s own Bayanihan efforts, which aims to help and guide students, teachers, learning institutions, and the whole education sector to discover solutions that would help us win in the new normal.
“The commission recognizes that the conduct of this activity will strengthen the flexible learning approaches of our HEIs. Through this collaboration, we hope to ensure and inspire all education stakeholders, policymakers, administrators, educators, learners, and the general public by examining and celebrating the response, relief, and recovery efforts in high education, through which a more adaptive, innovative, and resilience Philippine higher education system shall emerge,” said CHED chairperson Prospero De Vera III.
Gawad Edukampyon is deeply rooted in both Rex Education and CHED’s ongoing advocacies directed at uplifting the Filipino learner.
The award categories are as follows:
The Gawad Edukampyon for Excellence in Flexible and Responsive Management for outstanding management response – policies, programs, and practices – for the continuity of education during times of disruption while at the same time ensuring the health, safety and well-being of the students, faculty, staff and school-community.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Excellence in Flexible Teaching and Learning Innovation for innovations in instruction, teaching-learning, and assessment to ensure students are constantly engaged and challenged even during times of disruption.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Responsive Research and Development for outstanding products of HEI Research and Development significantly contributed to mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic or led to greater understanding of its causes and effects.
The Gawad Edukampyon for Public Service and Community Engagement for outstanding projects and projects by the HEI for alleviating the situation of its community during the pandemic.
The finalists and winners will be selected through a very rigorous screening process and will be featured during the Philippine Flexible Learning Summit on October 5-7, 2021 in observance of World Teacher’s Day.
The narratives of the winners will also be featured in the book Padayon, which will be published by Rex Education and will be uploaded in the Philippines CHED Connect Open Education Resource Hub.