THE Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) and the Philippine Educational Publishers Association (PEPA) have teamed up to help Philippine schools overseas (PSO) raise the quality of education for Filipino learners.
CFO Chairman Dante Ang II and PEPA President Jose Paolo Sibal sealed the partnership, with Sibal saying his group plans to extend its local activities and campaigns overseas to provide PSOs access to more diverse educational opportunities.
Ang noted that PSOs have been performing well, as shown by their students’ strong results in aptitude tests and entrance exams.
“But there’s always room to raise the bar even higher,” Ang said.
“Also, we want to ensure that every Filipino student abroad has more access to resources because they deserve nothing less,” he added.
There are 34 PSOs serving around 25,000 students worldwide. They have formed an organization, the Association of Philippine Schools Overseas (APSO), whose president was also present at the signing ceremony.
At least six more schools are in the pipeline for inclusion, opening even more avenues for PEPA to provide culturally grounded educational materials, according to CFO which was established to look after the welfare and empowerment of Filipinos residing abroad.
Sibal said that with the partnership, “we can reach out to the Philippine schools, and some of the schools that are not so active, because Secretary Klink has so many plans now.”
“We want to give them the benefits of our products, workshops, and seminars that each of our companies gives to schools locally. We can extend these to Philippine Schools Overseas so they can enjoy the same benefits and the same freedom of choice with regards to the products and services from the different publishers,” he said.
Along with the Department of Education (DepEd), the CFO provides PSOs with policy and program assistance and serves as the secretariat of the Inter-Agency Committee on Philippine schools.
An agency under the Office of the President, the CFO is mandated to strengthen the political, economic, and cultural ties between the Philippines and its global diaspora.
It promotes cultural appreciation, protects the welfare of overseas Filipinos, and creates pathways for them to contribute meaningfully to national development.
