Collaborative Initiatives in Making Education Accessible and Equitable: The Cases of the Agta, Batak and Dumagat Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to look at how access and equity in education have been addressed by communities and their various stakeholders through collaboration. Group cohesion and partnership with others are obvious dynamics obtaining in the build-up of communities, if they have to survive. Unfortunately, there exist more dominant groups who ascribe to themselves certain privileges that create gaps towards achieving an ideal state of pursuing equal opportunities for all. Collaboration goes further when researchers analyse these gaps in generating issues and concerns. This study aims to describe the community efforts that formed part of the collaborative initiatives in pursuing IP education with focus on three ethnic groups struggling to claim their right to education: the Agta, the Batak and the Dumagat. Collaboration is defined as "the working together of both cultures (beneficiaries and other stakeholders like government agencies, civil society that includes the church and universities- italics mine) building trust, social cohesion and reciprocity which are considered pivotal elements of social capital that empower the individual and lead to material and social benefit (Kingsley et al.)." As a higher education institute (HEI), the Lyceum of the Philippines University (LPU) through its Community Extension & Service Learning Center (COSeL) takes an active role as a facilitator- researcher for the collaborative efforts. It shall be referred to throughout this study as LPU-COSeL.