Pre-College Education Network MOU Signed

Manila, Philippines (15 September 2011) The Pre-College Education Network (P- CEN), a collaborative effort between the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, and De La Salle-College of St. Benilde, a part of DeLaSalle- Philippines celebrated its opening at a signing ceremony and education forum in Manila. P-CEN is a natural outgrowth of the Postsecondary Education Network-International (PEN-International), a multinational partnership of colleges and universities whose goal was to improve and expand post secondary opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing students worldwide. P-CEN strives to continue the values of PEN: Excellence, Integrity and Innovation.

The long term objective for P-CEN is to influence attitudes, practices and policies in partner countries so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing are not blocked from access to post secondary education, technology or employment. On order to do this P-CEN has four specific goals:

• To prepare professionals to work with deaf and hard of hearing students at the secondary, upper secondary and transition levels

• To enhance and/or create secondary and transition programs in partner countries

• To expand career education opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing people in the ASEAN region

• To increase access by people who are deaf and hard of hearing to technology and employment.

Through the generous support of The Nippon Foundation of Japan secondary education for deaf and hard of hearing students in the ASEAN region, P-CEN will be able to build local capacity by providing training and support for teachers and support staff and by disseminating and sharing resources throughout the region.

Following the signing ceremony, the ASEAN Education Forum: The Education and Employment circumstances of Deaf people in the ASEAN region were held. This forum included presentations by representatives from Japan, Viet Nam and the Philippines, who provided baseline data on the strengths and challenges that are faced by Deaf people in the Region and how their lives were impacted. Presenters included: Norie Oka and Hitomi Akahori, teachers at Meisei Gakuen School for the Deaf in Japan, James Woodward and Hoa Thi Nguyen, leaders of the Dong Nai Project in Viet Nam, Dean Nicky Perez and Leonides Sulse of DLS-CSB’s Learners’ Preparation course and Theresa Christine dela Torre, May Cabutihan and Raphael Domingo of the CSB Secondary Education Initiatives.