BATA BALIK ESKWELA CAMPAIGN

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

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The Bata Balik Eskwela (BBE) Campaign of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps)

aims to encourage children-beneficiaries to enroll back to school, so they may fully utilize the program benefits, and also to teach them the value of education in their lives and future (DSWD, 2019). The campaign also aims to address the number of Pantawid Pamilya children beneficiaries identified as “Not-Attending-School” or NAS.

The Pantawid Pamilya operationally termed these children as “Consistently-Not-Attending-School” or those who have not been attending school for at least

three (3) consecutive months in a given school year (PIA, 2019). 

 There are also beneficiaries identified as "Child-in-Conflict-with-Law" or CICL, and "Child-at-Risk" or CAR. CAR refers to children who are vulnerable to, and at risk of behaving in a way that can harm themselves or others, or vulnerable, and at risk of being pushed and exploited to come into conflict with the law because of personal, family, and social circumstances, such as but not limited to the following:

a. being abused by any person through sexual, physical, psychological, mental, economic, or any other means, and parents or guardians refuse, or unwilling, or unable to provide protection for the child; b. being exploited sexually or economically;

c. being abandoned or neglected, and after diligent search and inquiry, the parents or guardians cannot be found; d. coming from a dysfunctional or broken family or being without a parent or guardian; e. being out-of-school; f. being a street child;

g. being a member of a gang; h. living in a community with high level or criminality or drug abuse; and i. living in situations of armed conflict. This also includes curfew violations, truancy, and parental disobedience, among others.

 
Despite the collaborative efforts of DSWD, partner agencies,

and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), there are still 1196 Pantawid Pamilya children beneficiaries in Marinduque who are “Not-Attending-School” as of May 2019,

with the municipality of Buenavista constituting 293 NAS children or 24.5%,

the highest in all six municipalities of Marinduque. Yook, Buenavista constitutes 60 out of 293 NAS children, the highest in the municipality. Out of the 60 NAS children,

51 or 85% are known to violate curfew hours. In addition to this, there are 8 who are cutting classes, and 15 classified as bullies (Offline Beneficiary Tracking Report, 2018-2019). The child’s lack or loss of interest in school remains the number one reason for not attending school (Marinduque BBE Monitoring, 2019).  

In order to reduce the number of Pantawid Pamilya children beneficiaries identified as NAS, and to boost and/or maintain their interest in school, the conduct of

The Street Classroom Outreach Activity cum Bata Balik Eskwela (BBE) Campaign in Partnership with DSWD Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program was crucial. As such, the abovementioned activity was conducted in coordination and participation of the Department of Social Welfare and Development through its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Department of Education-Alternative Learning System (DepEd-ALS), and the Local Government Unit of Buenavista, Marinduque. 

The Outreach Activity cum Bata Balik Eskwela Campaign was an incorporation of learning activities, success story talks, and training-seminar that created awareness on the importance of education to one’s life. The learning activities not only focused on the cognitive and psychomotor domains of learners but also on their affective domains to holistically build the learner. Parents were also engaged in a training-seminar on parenting styles, which plays a big part on the child’s mental and motivational development. Presentation of other modes of delivery, like ALS, were also included in the activity to provide an avenue of choices for the NAS children. The activity provided a holistic and integrated service delivery intervention for managing cases for not attending children beneficiaries in school. This was heavily drawn from the case management process of DSWD involving problem identification, assessment, intervention planning and service delivery provision, and evaluation or case resolution. 

The activity aimed to motivate children beneficiaries to continue or go back to schooling under the formal education or under other alternative modes of delivery like ALS. Furthermore, the activity aimed to encourage parents to reassess their parenting style in order to have a harmonious parent-child relationship with their children. These were all achieved through partnership, engagement, and collaborative efforts of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, The Street Classroom, Department of Education, and the Local Government Unit of Buenavista, Marinduque.