Implementation of Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) in Lower Calanasan District, Philippines

Purpose: The study aimed to assess the implementation of the Indigenous People Education (IPEd) Program and its relationship to the learners’ scholastic achievement at the District of Lower Calanasan, Division of Apayao, school year 2021-2022.

Methods: The study looked into the personal profiles of the respondents in terms of age, sex, civil status, faculty rank, length of teaching service in years, and their highest educational attainment, These personal profiles of respondents will be tested through the Pearson r, if there’s a bearing with their perceptions on the level of implementation of the IPED Program along the seven indicators namely: Pedagogy and Methodology, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Curriculum Content and Planning, Language of Instruction, Teacher Training, Instructional Materials, and Assessment and Evaluation. The null hypothesis was either rejected or accepted at .05 level of significance.

Results: The study found out that majority of the teachers in Lower Calanasan, Apayao are female whose age is in their mid-30s. The majority of the teachers are married who hold a Bachelor’s Degree with a Teacher I position. The said teachers have an average year of experience in teaching for over 10 years as of writing.

Digging deeper to the Level of Implementation of IPED, the teachers indicated that they were able to implement the Pedagogy and Methodology, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Teacher training, Instructional materials, and the Assessment and Evaluation to a “great extent”.

Meanwhile, only Language of Instruction and Curriculum Content and Planning tallied a descriptive value of “to a very great extent”. In terms of the best practices of the teachers in implementing the IPED Program, the teachers indicated the strategy on “Translating modules of K to 12 into the Isnag dialect to make a more contextualized lesson”. When it comes to perceiving the benefits of the IPED Program, the teachers strongly agree that the said program, has a significant effect on the learners. Specifically, the study found out that the IPED program is helpful in making the IP learners have become active in class activities.

On the other hand, the students were found out to have achieved a very satisfactory mark in their core subjects during the School year 2021-2022. However, it can be noticed that the marks of the students are near the demarcation of the Satisfactory range.

Conclusions: Finally, the study found out that the level of implementation of the IPED Program particularly the indicators such as Pedagogy and Methodology; and Curriculum Content and Planning are both significantly related to the learners’ level of performance in their core subjects.