Re-entry Education Agenda for the Poor (REAP)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                            When Angelicum College celebrated its 25th anniversary, Reverend Father Rogelio Jose Bautista Alarcon, O.P., its founder, provided opportunities for the Angelicum Administration to reflect and be thankful to God for making Angelicum “wealthy” in terms of learners, facilitators and other employees with talents and dedication. As a result, the Angelicum Administration thought it best to share its Home Study Program (HSP) to out-of-school individuals whose right to be educated has long been denied to them because of poverty. This is Angelicum’s concrete way of acknowledging God’s countless blessings received and, in return, its concrete way of sharing its innovative Home Study Program to the community and the nation.             

• After two years of finding out that the HSP Program was an effective mode of delivering education, Rev. Fr. Rogelio B. Alarcon, O.P. proposed to the whole Angelicum community that after long years of success, it was high time to go out of school and offer a much-needed service for the Philippines.

• And so, in 1999, the dream of bringing education to all regardless of their status started. With HSP’s modular approach, there was a great possibility for even a poor learner in a far-flung area to study anywhere (e.g. in the farm, in the workplace) and anytime without necessarily attending school everyday.

• On January 28, 1999, in celebration of the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, the patron of Angelicum College, the event was highlighted with the launching of the Home Study Program for the Poor. It was a partnership between the college and the government. Joseph Ejercito Estrada was the President of the Philippines during that time. As a gesture of gratitude for his support and for believing in the school’s thrust, the program was named ERAP, which means Education Re-Entry Agenda for the Poor.

• From Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, many availed of the program.

• In the year 2000, when President Estrada was ousted from his post, the Proponent with the permission of the former President changed the acronym from ERAP to REAP which is now known as Re-entry Education Agenda for the Poor.

                            The REAP Program developed as an offshoot of Angelicum’s Home Study Program which proves effective even for learners who are in situations that prevent them from attending school everyday.
In response to the varied needs of learners who are determined to finish not only elementary but secondary education, its Home Study Program has consistently remained faithful in the forefront of innovative education in the country. It has continuously offered a mode of delivering basic education to address these reasons which hinder them from finishing their basic education.

• Inability to cope with school structures leading to loss of interest in schooling
• Inability to afford the cost of education and its ancillary expenses
• Inaccessibility of a school from home
• Working to augment family income
• Looking after younger siblings
• Lingering or chronic illness
• Physical disability

VISION

                            We envision the Filipino out-of-school youth and adults to finish at least basic formal education through the Non-graded Angelicum System of Education and its Home Study Program by venturing into partnership and mobilization of different types of institutions to support its implementation.

MISSION

We commit ourselves:
• to provide free basic formal and catholic education for out-of-school youth and adults;
• to form and develop competent professionals and leaders of our future by educating out-of-school youth and adults with the help of kind-hearted members of the community in the spirit of volunteerism;
• to provide a systematic exposure of the community to the context of the poor