Inclusiveness of Child-Friendly School System in Public Secondary School

Abstract

This study investigated the level of implementation on the inclusiveness of Child-Friendly School System (CFSS) of Barobo National High School, Barobo, Surigao del Sur Philippines. It utilized the descriptive method where 150 respondents consisting of administrators, teachers and students were asked about their evaluation of the program through a survey questionnaire. Results revealed that the program implementation of the public secondary school has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths include the presence of a school mission and/or vision statement and existence of policies about inclusive, child-friendly education; convenient, affordable, and safe mode of transport is  available from home to school for all children; monitoring mechanisms exist to  identify students prone of dropping out; all children have equal opportunities to participate in all school and classroom activities; the school has links with existing health authorities who provide periodic health examinations for children regardless of background or ability; parents receive information from the school about their children’s attendance, participation, and achievement; the school has staff, such as counsellors; teachers believe that all children can learn regardless of their background and ability; the school allows teachers to innovate teaching methods for helping all children learn; teachers can identify culture and gender bias in teaching materials, the school environment, and in their own teaching; and learning materials are in the language children use in and out of school. On the other hand, the weaknesses of the program implementation as to inclusiveness include the non-existence of school measures for assisting children with special needs and providing for  their learning (e.g., braille materials, signers for the deaf, multilingual resources); the school lacks facilities that meet the needs of all students, such as separate toilets for girls and ramps (not stairs) for physically disabled students; not all students have textbooks and learning materials that match their learning needs; teachers are not aware of resources that are available to assist children with special learning needs; no community members with diverse backgrounds and abilities are invited and welcomed into the class as resource persons; and children do not understand the concept of inclusive education and can identify culture and gender bias in learning materials. This reality calls for sustainability of the program implementation strengths while fortifying linkages of internal and external stakeholders to address the weaknesses of the implementation in order to convey a more inclusive child-friendly school system.