Investing in Quality Education for Children, a Quality Return of Investment for the Future

I’m sure at this point that many of us have already heard of the proverbial “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan,” which translates to say that “Children are the hope of the country”, especially among us Filipinos who have heard of the saying countless times already, quoting the national hero, Jose P. Rizal himself, in the process.

Sabrina Ongkiko, a public school teacher
Image Credit: www.gmanetwork.com
Recognizing the great potential of any country’s citizen as its greatest resource, it does not come as a surprise that an intellectual person such as Rizal would see children as someday the great reformer and catalyst of change of the nation – and any other nation, for that matter.

As every person was once a child, our adults of today were once children themselves who have gone through life building themselves through their experiences about it along with the people which helped shaped them become who they are at the present.

How we build the children of today will shape how our future with them at the forefront of the changes – for good or bad.

But as the saying alone will not suffice to make a change without acting on it, there are those who are committed enough in making a change that they live their lives in servitude to others regardless of the gains only to attain such change for the good.

Setting a Good Example - The Life of Sabrina Ongkiko

Such was the life of Sabrina Ongkiko, an elementary public school teacher from a prestigious university who dreamed of making an impact at life, many children at a time.

Ongkiko is a person who was meant to be great: she belonged to a well-off family who could send her at every prestigious school she would have wanted, a person who originally aspired to be a doctor, and an obvious intellect which could help her attain that goal.

But instead, she became a completely different person by choosing to be someone else she originally intended – she became a public elementary school teacher.

Many people, whom she also admitted, had a mixed feeling towards her choice in life – some are shocked, if not amazed; while the rest are just plain disappointed.

Set within the context of gains, she chose a route in life where she could only get less than the route she originally intended.

Yet, it is her calling… for change.

In her revelation, we knew that in order to build a better hope for the future,we should start at our students in the classroom.

For her, all it takes is the right mindset: that children can be as good a student they can be with the right motivations and the right thinking towards achieving their goals in life starting at school.

In so doing, we are building a people of good values which see for the better future of one another as much as what they would do for themselves – as they pass the tests at school, they so too they will pass on in life with one another.

In the end, Sabrina Ongkiko is an exemplary person who aimed at making a change for demonstrating the real value of the concept of the return on investment in its least practical application – it may not always be a matter of money nor something she could easily make use of in return, but it is nonetheless something that can make a change for the better not just for herself, but also to many others as a result of her “invested” effort in her dream of making a change.

Watch Sabrina Ongkiko - Our Return of Investment

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