School: A Community of Learners

COLF operates an independent school for children from infancy to adolescence, which offers the complete early childhood, elementary to secondary education program. It is a government-recognized private school. There are 800 students, with ages ranging from 6 months to 19 years, enrolled in the school.

The COLF School for Children is a working model of progressive, developmentally-appropriate and culturally-relevant educational approaches that take into consideration the needs and characteristics of children as learners. It also serves as a demonstration/training site for teachers, early childhood development workers and administrators from the public sector, from the non-government organizations, the private school sector; from different parts of the country as well as some countries in Asia, Africa.

The school is self-sustaining since the tuition fees paid by the parents are used for the operations of the school. A modest scholarship fund supplemented by donations provides financial assistance for children from families with limited resources.

COLF offers innovative and pioneering features in its programs for infants (from two months) to adolescence:

Infant Development Program and Workplace-based Child Care

An Integrated Curriculum from Early Childhood to High School

Media Center

COLF's Media Center provides children, staff members from the School for Children and participating teachers in various training programs with a variety of multimedia resources to enrich the learning experiences within COLF's educational programs. It is the base for the School's innovative Music and Performing Arts Program for the School for Children implemented by a team of teachers who are also talented artists and composers.

It is also home to the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTVF) a longtime partner of COLF, producer of multi-awarded children's programs like BATIBOT, Pin Pin. PCTVF is a pioneer in the production of developmental media for children, research on children and media and advocacy for quality, child-friendly media.

Our Vision: Reaching out to Build more Communities of Learners

Since 1983, COLF has worked in partnership with several communities by helping them to establish early childhood care and development (ECCD) and parent education programs. Until now, the mothers and young women from these initial seven urban poor and rural communities assisted by COLF and its NGO partners continue to implement their own, self-sustaining community-based ECCD programs.

The Family Education program for the Aetas of Pinatubo (in Tarlac and Zambales provinces) and the Family Education Program for Tagbanuas (in Aborlan, Palawan) are two of the most challenging, comprehensive and innovative community-based programs of COLF. Both are supported by German Agro-Action (DWHH) and the European Communities (EC). The program for the Aetas in Central Luzon, which was initiated in 1992, shortly after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo emerged as a pioneering approach to responding to young children in times of emergencies such as a natural disaster. 1,549 indigenous families - Aetas and Tagbanuas - have been participating in these early childhood, child-to-child, parent education, family literacy and livelihood programs. The Pinatubo program is one of ten participating ECCD programs in the Effectiveness Initiative Project of the Bernard Van Leer Foundation.

COLF has also worked on educational programs for street children and working children with a focus on children's rights, life skills and support for schooling including the organization of a “child-parent cooperative.” These programs were made possible by small, short-term grants from various funding agencies.

Partnerships for Children and Families

COLF provides technical support for non-governmental organizations through training, consultation and advisory support for their own community-based early childhood development programs. From the early years, COLF has prioritized the provision of support for NGOs working in Mindanao, the Visayas, Northern and Southern Luzon where many of the poorest provinces are located.

From 1996, COLF has also been tapped as a resource and training partner by government agencies such as: 1) the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the training of supervisors and service providers involved in the national Day Care Program; 2) the Department of Education for the Multigrade Demonstration School Project and the Child Friendly Schools Initiative, both UNICEF-supported programs; 3) the Department of Education and local government units in four provinces of Central Luzon (Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Zambales, Bataan) for “Kinder Plus,” a pilot project demonstrating the features of the new law R.A. 8980, Early Childhood Care and Development Act.

Since July 2000 COLF has been involved in a special partnership with eleven public schools in Central Mindanao, the Division office in the provinces of Maguindanao and Cotabato, and Oxfam-Great Britain (OGB). The project is the educational component of OGB's rehabilitation program for the School for Teaching Peace the displaced children of war in Central Mindanao. It is another pioneering effort which seeks to transform these war-damaged public schools into child-friendly, effective schools that are also places for healing and for teaching peace right in the midst of armed conflict.

COLF has also been an active participant in regional and international networks specifically for early childhood development, for children's rights and for the education of children in especially difficult circumstances.

COLF is represented by its Executive Director in the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Development, an international resource on ECCD. It also works in partnership with the Regional Training and Resource Centre for Early Childhood Care and Education (RTRC-Asia) which is based in Singapore, the National Institute for Child Development based in Thailand's Mahidol University, and the Unicef East Asia and Pacific Regional Office in building an Asian ECD Network.

COLF is the UNESCO Cooperating Center for Early Childhood Education in Southeast Asia.

COLF was the coordinating organization for the "Children's Participation in Action Research" Project in partnership with the Institute for Development Research of the University of Amsterdam, and other NGO's and academic institutions in Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Columbia and India.

The COLF Staff: A Community of Practice

Most of the COLF staff members are teachers and community development/child development workers. The senior staff also serve as trainers/consultants for the various training programs that COLF is involved in. Fourteen people serve in the Management Team and at the same time also assume teaching/training and program coordination functions.

Majority of the COLF staff members have college (AB or BS) degrees in Education, Family Life and Child Development, Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Social Work, Nursing, Mathematics, Science, Music and Fine Arts, Economics, Agriculture. Senior COLF staff have graduate degrees in educational leadership, management. Some teachers are working for their master's degree in Family Life and Child Development, Education, Special Education, Psychology, Educational Administration. Most of the senior staff have participated in international seminars in the field of education, early childhood and family programs, community development.

A strength of the COLF staff is their intensive experience in working directly with children and families through the school, through the community-based programs and through various training programs. COLF is also very deeply committed to a high-quality and intensive in-service professional development program for staff who participate in continuing staff development programs.