The Kumon Math program of One Small Step Forward Foundation Inc. (OSSFFI) at Libis Elementary School celebrated its fifth year last February 2008 in simple ceremonies with the center’s 125 students in attendance. As of press time, the outreach center is three months from celebrating its sixth year. To-date, the center has taken in over 300 students into the Math program. For a school with an average enrolment of 900, this is a very high percentage. Nearly 50 students graduated from the school while taking up Kumon on their sixth and last grade. In fact, the very first Grade 6 Kumon batch, numbering eight, that graduated from Libis Elementary School in March 2004, already graduated from high school last April 2008. All of them were star math students in high school, a legacy of their Kumon experience in elementary school.

To recall, the program was conceived in late 2002 when Bing del Rosario and Victor Claravall began negotiations with Kumon Philippines Inc. to offer the Kumon Math program as an outreach effort at Libis Elementary School in Libis, Quezon City. In December of 2002, KPI approved the proposal for a pilot of 50 students, 25 from Libis Elementary School and 25 from the nearby Bagumbayan Elementary School. Under the terms of agreement, Bing would pay the usual monthly royalty fees per child and hire-pay the salaries-allowances of the center’s teachers and part-time proctors; in turn, KPI would waive the materials cost. In mid-January 2003, the Kumon center inside Libis Elementary School started formal operations, with Mr. Victor Claravall, a Kumon franchisee and director of the Kumon center where Bing’s children were enrolled, volunteering to head the outeach center. In 2004, KPI gave permission to up the enrollment to 75. In 2005, Bing got approval to up the center capacity to 100. And in mid-2006, KPI gave permission to raise the enrolment to 125.

The results over the last five-plus years have been dramatic. Math grades of the children have significantly improved, by an average of four to five percentage points, especially among those who have stayed with the program for two or more years, as attested to by the records that the center meticulously keeps. Most Kumon parents have noted a marked increase in discipline and concentration improved study habits.

Since 2005, the center has garnered the majority of first places in both team and individual categories for the various grade levels at the school district level in the math competitions sponsored annually by the Math Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP). At School District 13, Libis Elementary School competes with Bagumbayan Elementary School, Balara Elementary School, Old Balara Elementary School, and Old Balara Annex. In January 2006, the school fielded an all-Kumon team to the MTAP competitions and topped the cluster level and then the political district level in all categories, and had several first place individual and grade level wins at the division level (which includes all of Quezon City’s 97 public elementary schools), the first time the school achieved such a feat.

The outreach center has also taken great pride in having one of its star students, Mark Barilla, get accepted into Philippine Science High School in 2007, the very first from Libis Elem – in fact, the very first from Quezon City’s political district 3.

Last November 9, Mark Barilla and Jamea Siasoco of Libis Elementary School were honored by Kumon Philippines, together with nearly 800 other gold awardees from all over the Philippines, at the ASHR ceremonies at SMX Convention Center. It was their second time to be recognized. In 2006, it was Mark Barilla and Jayson Talento who were recognized, at the PICC.

In addition, the center had replaced over a hundred students who had dropped out for one reason or another from 2003 to 2008. The most common reason had been family relocation, given the systematic city program to relocate the squatter families living in the Libis Sitio areas. Unlike other for-profit centers, lack of motivation and burn-out accounts for a very small percentage of the turnover.

Center manager Victor Claravall personally screens the applicants’ parents and teachers, a factor that is most credited for the low voluntary turnover. He look for parental support and pressure as well as past demonstrations of the child’s focus and desire to learn. When the parents have a leave-them-alone or it’s-the-child’s-decision attitude, or the child has a poor diligence or study record as attested to by their teachers, the application is denied. The current average stay per student at the Libis center is 32 months, one of the best index among the 170 centers countrywide. The best 20 percent of centers average 24 months’ stay.

A highlight of the five-year-plus program was the involvement of the Accenture Philippines Foundation for a two-year run, from November 2005 to October 2007. Accenture provided funds to support 50 Kumon scholars, which took a significant financial load off the Foundation’s shoulders, after Bing del Rosario had received KPI permission to increase seats by another 25. Most of the Accenture scholars were new entrants, mostly first-graders. Their selection was based on the premise that the younger they started with the program, the more years they could spend doing Kumon before graduating from elementary school. Accenture’s involvement formally started last November 30, 2005, when Accenture Country Lead Beth Lui and Senior Executive and CSR (corporate social responsibility) in-charge Nescel Asuncion attended the simple launch ceremony at Libis Elementary School to kick off the one-year Accenture scholarship program. A year later, on November 6, 2006, in simple ceremonies involving Senior Executive and CSR-in-charge Nescel Asuncion and principal Seri Vargas, Accenture decided to reinvest in One Small Step Forward Foundation’s Kumon program for Libis Elementary School for one more year.

Libis Elementary School principals, parents and teachers have demonstrated unflagging support for the math program over the past six years. When Bing del Rosario and Victor Claravall introduced the program in January 2003, the school principal then was Pacit Manga and she was highly supportive. Since then, Eloi Opeña, Seri Vargas, and Thelma Co have taken over the reins and all have strongly supported the program.

Today, two full-time proctors man the center, namely, Mhay Alonzaga and Eloisa (Eloi) Antonio. Both Eloi and Mhay graduated with math degrees from PUP and have been with the Libis center since 2007. Eloi had been a Kumon instructor at Loyola Heights since 2005 while Mhay had been with the Kumon center at Creative Beginners, also since 2005. Several math teachers have also done volunteer duty as center proctors but the most consistent have been Linda Perges and Imelda Bernadas, who have been with the program since 2003. Two Kumon parents also deserve mention since they have been doing worksheet corrections since two years ago, namely, Susan Catedrilla and Anna Barilla. Mrs. Catedrilla has had a daughter go through the program (now in high school) and has a second daughter currently in the program. Mrs. Barilla has two sons currently in the program. Eldest Mark is a gold awardee (see above) and may yet be the first program completer from Libis Elementary School.