As a professional educator teaching then at the Center for Research and Communication, I was asked in 1976 by a group of parents to help them implement the dictum of St. Josemaria Escriva, Founder of Opus Dei (who had passed away just a year before in Rome), “Parents first, teachers, second and student last.” I had some practical insights into this educational philosophy because I was exposed to some of the schools organized along this line in Spain, where I spent a sabbatical in 1963 after I obtained my Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University. I spent this sabbatical in Barcelona and the school for boys using the Parents First philosophy was called Viaro at the outskirts of this leading industrial city in Spain.
Together with other educators, I met regularly with the founders of the Parents for Education Foundation (PAREF), who wanted to address the challenge of the times: the whole-person or integral formation of their children with the twin thrust of academic excellence and sound character training. The parents were convinced that they should take a very active part in the establishment and operation of schools inspired by the Parents-first philosophy, which, as we saw in the first article in this series, is a fundamental part of Catholic doctrine, as clearly stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Paragraphs 2022 ff.)
Seeing the need to bring the task of education where it properly belongs, especially in the early years of childhood and adolescence, these parents formed a foundation whose main corporate objective is to build schools where their educational philosophy can be operationalized. The entity was aptly named “Parents for Education Foundation, Inc,” or “PAREF”. A year later, in 1977, PAREF gave birth to its first child, Woodrose, a school for girls that began operations in a large residential building in New Manila, Quezon City, starting with Grades One to Five. The school later transferred to its definitive site within the Ayala Alabang Village, thanks to a generous donation of land from the Zobel family. The school for boys followed soon after in 1979. It was named Southridge, nestled in a three-hectare property in Hillsborough Subdivision in Muntinlupa, thanks to a donation of land from the family of Joselito Campus, one of the founders of the largest pharmaceutical company in the Philippines, UNILAB. From the very beginning, Southridge opened its doors to boys entering Grade One to Seven. With the two schools catering to almost the same set of families, Woodrose and Southridge became known as the first PAREF Tandem Schools offering primary, intermediate, and secondary education. Despite the trend all over the world of introducing co-education at the basic education level among private schools, the PAREF schools still keep the genders separated on the scientifically demonstrated fact that boys and girls go through very different stages of maturation during their childhood and adolescent years and, therefore, require differentiated pedagogical and psycho-social treatments.
Through the years, other tandem schools have been organized by parents in different districts of Metro Manila and in regions such as Quezon City and Antipolo and in Cebu, Iloilo, and most recently Cagayan de Oro. The PAREF system is now a big family with 13 schools and has graduated more than 8,000 students over almost half a century. As the Philippine economy transitions from a low-middle income economy to a high-middle income one (per capita income of about $4,500 or over) and urban populations move away from Manila to Southern Luzon and Central and Northern Luzon, it is predictable that there will be tandem schools in such provinces and cities as Batangas, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Tacloban, Naga and other growing urban areas.
To prepare the minds of present and future parents for their eventual incorporation into the PAREF system, let me summarize the principles behind the schools belonging to its system. PAREF holds the principle that education begins at home, that parents have the natural and primary responsibility of educating their children; that parental authority includes the care and upbringing of children towards the development of their moral character and well-being, that the children have the right to be brought up in an atmosphere of morality and rectitude for the enrichment and strengthening of their will, and that the family is the seedbed of this formation.
PAREF affirms the school’s complementary role in children’s education and formation. In this collaborative undertaking with the parents as the first movers, the School commits itself to guarantee, safeguard, and promote the right of the child to be raised in an atmosphere conducive to morality and rectitude and confirms its duty to give the parents the necessary support towards their own formation, to enable them to carry out effectively their sublime calling. A unique feature of the school is the continuing formation of each parent by means of a system of peer coaching through which the older and more experienced parents help the starting and younger ones to form better relationships with their spouses, their children, and God (spiritual advice). Since the majority of the parents are Roman Catholics, they are given access to continuing means of doctrinal and spiritual formation through days of recollection, classes on Catholic doctrine, access to the Sacraments and individual spiritual direction—always with a delicate respect for the freedom of consciences.
All academic courses offered in the PAREF schools follow the curricula required by the Philippine Government. The Schools profess and honor the values and ideals of Filipino culture. The religious instruction is based on the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The formation offered by the PAREF School consists of:
- Demanding and whole-person academic program
- The mentoring system as the distinctive feature of personal formation and collaboration with the parents.
- Imparting broad, humanistic and cultural formation.
- Encouraging the practice of human virtues towards the development of personal maturity, leading each person to achieve perfection in his work according to his ability.
The teachers, who are second in priority in participation and formation, are committed to freely and responsibly taking as their own these declared principles and to actualizing them in their tasks of teaching and character formation, pursuant to the rules and guidelines prescribed by the management of the School. The School shall select, organize, conduct, and offer courses and activities it deems necessary and promotive for the formation and professional development of the teaching staff.
As regards the financing of the facilities and the operations of the Schools, the parents take it upon themselves to raise whatever funds are needed. The Schools are organized like a private, not-for-profit Club. This means that each entering couple would invest a designated amount to enter the club. The invested fund (which earns no interest) stays with the School until all the children of the investing couple have graduated (it is very often that parents, because of their having been very satisfied with the way their children were educated, no longer require the School to give back the invested fund).
For operations, designated tuition and other fees are regularly collected from the parents. Understandably, most of the families who have children in the PAREF schools belong to the high-middle income category, although children from less economically privileged families are given scholarships to be able to study in the Schools. Parents in other cities of the Philippines who want to prepare the way to establish schools along the lines of the PAREF schools may want to contact the office of PAREF at email [email protected] or Tel No. (632) 8631-1695 local 1. The usual way to begin is to establish a Kindergarten school. To be continued.