VICE President Sara Duterte-Carpio on Friday acknowledged the great contributions of the Philippine Normal University to the country’s basic education system.

Duterte was the guest speaker at the PNU and Commission on Higher Education International Education Conference at the Rizal Park Hotel this morning.

“Through your partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, you helped the Department of Education develop the Senior High School curriculum — producing teaching guides for core, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics or STEM and Accountancy, Business and Management, or ABM subjects,” Duterte-Carpio said.

She lauded the PNU for providing accessible and quality training for teachers through its Research Center for Teacher Quality program.

“Through the research and technical work provided by PNU’s RCTQ to our legislators, we now have a national law that unifies approaches to enhancing teachers’ knowledge, skills, and practices across the country from the pre-service to the in-service stage,” she said.

She recalled that she knew the enormity of the challenges that awaited her when she accepted the offer of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to become Secretary of Education.

Duterte admitted that there remains much to be done, specifically in helping teachers sharpen their skills to address the concerns of diverse learners and in strengthening instructional leadership and supervision to improve teaching quality with system-wide capacity development.

“This is our time to unite and collaborate to ensure that our future workforce will be skilled, equipped, and productive,” she said.

Duterte reiterated the commitment of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to help the Department of Education recover and rebuild the education sector.

“I look forward to reading the recovery roadmap you will produce after this conference and I am excited to work with you in the next six years as we usher in meaningful basic education reforms,” she added.