Posted: January 31, 2022

Last January 21, 2022, some 200 + teachers in the Northern Mindanao Schools Division of Oroquieta City (Misamis Occidental, Region X) added more research knowledge in their classroom learning investigations as they listened to Dr. Lizan Perante-Calina, Dean of the Development Academy of the Philippines-Graduate School of Public and Development Management (DAP-GSPDM), talk about Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight (FT&SF). All were participants in the Region X Division Research Conference aptly titled “Redefining Education Practices through Research for Policy Implications and Innovation,” courtesy of Dr. Roberto D. Napere, Jr., Assistant Schools Division Superintendent, who took time to organize the event.

 Dean Lizan, who is also the President of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society (PhilFutures) stressed on how FT&SF can provide the relevant knowledge benefits for educators as well as for their research studies. She clarified on what FT&SF is – as an approach to identifying long-term and emerging issues and challenges that may influence and shape the future development of a policy area, enabling the FT&SF expert to explore their implications for policy development.

 The fact that the conference participants occupied leadership positions in their respective schools lent valuable significance to the message of Dean Lizan as it intends to promote a culture of research and translating it to policies and innovations using FT as an idea, theory, and/or paradigm, and to promote a culture of anticipatory, collaborative and innovative education leadership, and to consider mindset as a solution using Hiraya Foresight and FT under the Futures Leadership and Governance Framework.

Dean Lizan mentioned in passing that the word “Rethinking” – as bannered in the Conference’s title – was most apropos. According to her, rethinking in the area of education and learning induces multi-reciprocal flows: One, rethinking efforts empower learners to be equipped with knowledge and to be active members in their own communities. This leads to a second flow, with rethinking efforts constituting valuable sources of support and positive influence for young people. In turn, this output channels a third flow that feeds back to the further empowerment of learners.

Dean Lizan emphasized the role of educators in FT&SF. She said that educators have the ability to shape leaders of the future in the best way for society to build positive and inspired future generations, and to design society both on a local and global level.

Dean Lizan, thus, connected standard FT&SF strengths to the Futures Leadership and Governance Framework, a holistic approach to carve out desirable futures. In this framework, aside from FT, one important variable includes Hiraya Foresight. Hiraya Foresight is Dean Lizan’s own ingenuous means to indigenize and adapt western-based FT&SF concepts to the Philippine setting. She highlighted, in this regard, the Filipino values of bayanihan, balikatan, malasakit, galang, ugnayan, and pananagutan.

A most memorable food for thought that Dean Lizan imparted to the participants was about the FT&SF research tools. This included mapping, timing, deepening, creating alternatives, and transforming.

After Dean Lizan’s keynote speech, the Conference devoted the rest of the one-day event to the presentation of abstracts of research done by the Region X Oroquieta City educators in four knowledge areas: teaching and learning, child protection, human resource development, and governance. In alignment with the research goals of the conference, the one research in the governance area was on the “Leadership Performance of School Heads during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Most abstract presentations were in the teaching-learning area.

Dean Lizan also holds the position of President of the Philippine Society for Public Administration (PSPA). She is one of the Advisory Board members of the Washington Global Institute, and the laurel on her head, she is distinguished for introducing the first-ever Certificate Course on Futures Thinking in the Philippines with credit units.