Indigenous Knowledge Management in advancing Philippine Basic Education's research culture: Lessons from the Cordillera Administrative Region

• In Event: Indigenous knowledge in practice

Proposal

The Philippine Basic Education has been going through various reform initiatives. For one, it has been firming up its research function or mandate. More recently, it defines research culture as “the regular exercise of systematic inquiry to improve program and policy development and implementation” (2017, n.p.). This is reinforced by other related policies, which were issued within the last 20 years. For instance, the conduct of educational research officially became an integral function when what used to be Department of Education, Culture, and Sports (DECS) was transformed into Department of Education (DepEd) in 2001. The Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) policy in 2009 also ignited many researches. The Kto12 Law in 2013 prescribes the teaching of research courses in Senior High School (SHS). Moreover, Basic Education Research Fund (BERF), which appropriates budget for approved researches, was instituted in 2015. The Basic Education Research Agenda (BERA), which lists main and cross-cutting themes, came out in 2016. Eventually, Research Management Guidelines (RMG), which explains the research process, and Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST), which articulates research as component of pedagogical competence, were launched in 2017. Administrators and school heads are expected to produce basic researches, while teachers action researches. Add to these the Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) policy framework in 2011 and curriculum framework in 2015. This suggests Indigenous Peoples (IPs) are not forgotten. However, because these are recent developments or innovations, related studies are also limited. While studies on Indigenous Knowledge (IK) abound, studies on how it is practically accessed, analyzed, aggregated, advanced, archived and applied in the research sites are very minimal.
This paper presents snippets of an ethnographic study conducted in two Schools Division Offices (SDO) in Cordillera Administrative Region in North Luzon or Amianan, Philippines. Initially, it (1) appraises the growing research culture of SDO-Tabuk City within 2019-2021 and (2) proposes an Indigenous Knowledge Management (IKM) model based on previous and ongoing engagements with a Junior High School (JHS) teacher in SDO-Kalinga. Both SDOs serve indigenous communities. Historically, both had constituted SDO-Kalinga, but the former was granted autonomous status in 2014. This is why available data do not also delineate these.
Moreover, this paper takes off from the lens of Knowledge Management (KM), which is essentially documentation, dissemination, and development (Heaton, 2015) or storage, sharing, and scaling up of knowledge (Flor, 2018). KM has three broad perspectives: cognitive, networking, and community (Heaton, 2015, p. 320). In line with the cognitive perspective, which considers knowledge as an asset, commodity, or resource, this paper accounts for researches conducted and completed by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)-Philippines about CAR within 1953-2003 and abstracts of paper presentations in local research conferences within 2016-2021. Meanwhile, the networking perspective looks into alliances, engagements, and relationships with other agencies and organizations in the area of research. This is, in fact, mandated by RMG. Hence, the paper figures out the SDO's linkages with appropriate organizations. Lastly, the community perspective focuses on how knowledge is “generated locally and culturally through the social construction of new meanings and understandings” (Orlikowski, 2002 in Heaton, 2015, p. 320). KM, in fact, originated and is widely practiced in business and corporate contexts, this is why Basic Education’s growing research culture is hinged on the community perspective, hence, IKM.
Further, thick description or qualitative data, which are mainly textual, were accessed through ethnography, particularly from the author/proponent's engagements with these two respective SDOs and in various capacities. McCarty (2015) explains that ethnography involves experiencing through direct or indirect observation, enquiring through formal or informal interviews, thus, conversations, and examining through the analysis of archives, documents, and other records. On the one hand, the appraisal is a result of content analysis. It involves making inferences about the antecedent of texts, describing features of the texts, and making inferences about the texts. On the other hand, the IKM model emerged from discourse analysis of field notes, conversations, and other archives or documents. It basically coded, compared/contrasted, and categorized salient ideas.
In line with the appraisal of the former’s growing research culture, the study found out that, within 1953-2003 or in 50 years, the region had engaged with researches mainly in partnership with SIL-Philippines. Within the said period, 3,314 titles were produced, 633 (or almost 20%) of the titles were about CAR, 232 were conducted with DepEd, and 54 were about Kalinga. Authors were administrators (like supervisors and principals), teachers, administrative personnel, and an education undergraduate student. From 18 local research conferences within 2016-2021 that yielded a total of 1,771 abstracts, only 19 (or only 1%) of these were produced by DepEd-CAR. In terms of research linkages, the SDO under study only has one state university as formal or official partner. With eight paper presentations in the said SDO’s virtual research conference last year and with 16 this year, hence, 24, none, so far, explored or invoked IK. Despite the celebrated research culture, IK remains marginalized or obscured.
Because of this, an KM model emerging from engagements in the other SDO is proposed not only to increase the number of research outputs but also advance IK and hopefully elicit indigenous methodologies. The emergent model is hinged on Iloco (Amianan’s lingua franca) terms of engagement, involvement, and participation. The first phase is pannakinaig or collecting IK and connecting with its bearers or custodians and other potential partners inside and outside the community. This involves collaborating with IP leaders or mandatory representatives early on. The next is panangbuangay or constructing knowledge mainly through the academic reading and writing workshops, which were held either face-to-face or through social media. This is followed by pannangiyebkas or conveying constructed knowledge by presenting a paper at research conferences and publishing in a refereed research journal. The last is panangdagup or consolidating collected, constructed, and conveyed knowledge, but this has been pending because of the constraints due to a global pandemic. The paper concludes with practicable and plausible strategies in advancing research across governance levels.

Author

• ERIC JOYCE DELA CRUZ GRANDE, University of the Philippines Los Banos