JOSE V. AGUILAR
(1900-1980)
Educator
and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee
For
Government service
Education pioneer and Ramon
Magsaysay awardee for government Service in 1959, Jose Vasquez Aguilar was born
on March 23,1900 in barrio Caduhaan, Cadiz, Negros Occidental. After his native
Caduhaan for one-year .Upon completing his secondary education in 1920, he left
for the United States, where he worked his way through college. He graduated
with Bachelor of Arts in philosophy degree from the Denison University in Ohio in
1925.
Despite being a working
student, Aguilar found time to be active in the university debating team, which
competed with other colleges. In 1924, he was elected to the Tau Kappa alpha
debating Fraternity. Upon his return to the Philippines in 1925, he was
appointed teacher of English at the Negros Occidental High School. The
following year, he was promoted to academic supervisor of the division on
Masbate. He transferred to Cebu in the same capacity in 1957.In the same year,
he took the division superintendents examination, which topped. He was
appointed division superintendent of Camarines Norte in 1928.He served in the position in the provinces of Antique,
Samar, Capiz and Iloilo up to 1954.
Aguilar’s potential as an
authority on education was recognized when he was asked to serve as consultant
on elementary education to the joint congressional committee on education and
later to the UNESCO Consultative Mission to the Philippines. In 1954,he became
the country’s representative to the Republic of China and adviser to that
country’s community school program. He worked for several months in Taiwan
provincial Department Education and the US Economic Mission on Community
Schools Project in Chitung and Tungshih,
where pilot projects for a new Educational
movement in the Republic of China were undertaken. In April 1954, Aguilar was
promoted as professor in the College of
Education in the University of the
Philippines. The following year, he was granted a Smith –Mundt fellowship,
which allowed him to travel in the US and observe Asian study centers and applied linguistic programs .In 1956 he was designated panel
member for community schools in the Social Science Research Center, which was
invited by the government to make recommendations in framing an economic program for the country. During the same
year, he was named observer for he UP in
the Fifth Annual Assembly of World
Confederations of Organizations of the Teaching Professions ,which was held in
Manila. He also attended a workshop for
teachers in community schools held in Vietnam. Also during 1956, Aguilar was
appointed director of the UP extension division. In 1958, he was designated
head of the department of education of the university. He served as such until June 1958,when he was appointed
acting dean. He became dean in October
of the same year.
Early in 1959, He served as acting chairman and project director the Community
Development Research Council in the absence
of its chairman. In May of the same year, he retired from the government service to become
the director of the Philippine Center for Language Studies.
In recognition of his valuable
contributions to the
Philippine education and community welfare ,Aguilar received an
honorary doctorate degree from the Central Philippines
University in Iloilo City in 1952,He also received awards from the Philippine
Tuberculosis Society in 1950,the Southern Iloilo Varsitarian in 1951,the Iloilo
Press club in 1952 and the Boy Scouts of
the Philippines in 1953,In 1959 ,the Philippine Association of School
Superintendents cited him for his ”distinguished leadership”, particularly in
the promotion of the community school
movement in the Philippines. He was a
life member of the Philippine Public School
Teachers Association and was
president of the Philippine Association of School Superintendents.
Among is published works were:
”Education for the Forgotten Masses.” ”Significance of Bilingual
Education,” Native Approach of Education,” Influence of Language in Community Life,” and “Articles on the Case for the
Vernacular. Aguilar wrote detailed reports on the Iloilo Experiments on the Venicular, the Development of the Santa
Barbara Community Schools Project, and a monograph entitled ,” This is Our
Community School,” His other writing
discussed conceptual fallacies involving occupational education and the
developing approach to occupations in the Philippines. Two of his articles , which described the community school idea
and its practice, were published abroad. One , entitled “Development of
Community School Concept,” appeared in
the 52nd yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education
in 1953 .The other,” Community Schools of the Philippines,’ was published and
welfare in 1957. In 1952, Aguilar asked the Bureau of the Public Schools to
evaluate the performance of his division. It cited the “high sense of
educational leadership willing to submit itself to a test for a validity of its program and eager to assert itself, and
its achievements, all in the interest of
an adequate and satisfying school
system,” adding: There was very good evidence that the children were
being educated in a life of excellent work and people seemed to be retaining
better customs and usages than in the
past.” On the used f the vernacular ,-in this case, Hiligaynon -the report said
that the students were “ more dominant, extrovert, soundly mature and more
interested in their schools,” and that the teachers were relieved of the
“traditional drudgeries of teaching for they “could speak heart to heart with
adults and young.”
The bureau supported Aguilar’s project. Soon, other superintendents
adopted his methods and, later, evolved
their own. Eventually, the bureau adopted the school-community scheme in the
national program.
In 1959,Dr.Aguilar received
the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service as” a fair- sighted innovator
and as delicated educator” who had” set a standard to emulate.
He died on January 31,1980.
Name:
Clarissa N. Garcia
II-BSCOS-2
Add:
Kaybagal Central Tag. City
Tel
: 09164878320