It says in one quote of Lily Tomlin, “The road to success is always under construction”. True enough, in gaining successes we should always work hard, put our passion and raise our spirits to become a good contributor of our nation. Last January 25, 2015, the ALSA-BUHAY Payatas learners took their way towards brighter future. This is the day they have all waiting for, the day that will set the conclusion of their almost one year studying and learning under the foundation – the Accreditation and Equivalency Examination.

A week before the exam, learners were undergone a series of assessment and pre-examination to help them understand more the important topics and be familiarize and oriented in answering different types of exam and question. The exams and reviewers were gathered from different resources like exams from previous batch, reviewers from DepEd and BALS and a mock test made by the Instructional Managers. They were also taught different techniques and tips for their proper conditioning during the examination. It was a bit exhausting week for them but we observed positive results on their outputs both in objective and essay part.

After series of examinations during the last day of our final coaching, we prepared a simple program for our learners. We tagged it as last “Focused-Class Discussion” in similar to the usual “focused-group discussion” that we give whenever we feel problems or challenges are present in a specific learner. We made questions that they can be used to share their feelings and sentiments for the very last time. Questions are “what is the mark that they left to their fellow classmates?”, “do they have regrets during the course of their learning under the foundation?”, “what is their plan for next few weeks after the examination” and “will they pass the A&E exam?”. It was filled with lot of laughter, emotions and inspiration knowing that they have gone so far from the first time that they entered in our center. The staffs also shared their personal feelings and dreams for each learner. The program ended with a video presentation that shows the memories we’ve all shared together and at the end of slideshow, a simple reminder to all test-takers: Aim for 100%.

On the day of examination, we gathered at the Payatas Center at 5:00 o’clock in the morning were learners took their breakfast as well. We all arrived at San Francisco High School at exactly 6:20 am which is the assigned testing center for all NGO’s in Quezon City. Among the 35 learners from ALSA-BUHAY who took the examination, 3 of them belong to elementary level and the rest are secondary. The exam started at 8:00am and ended at 12:00noon. It was nice to know that most of them are really confident that they will pass the said examination. To God be the glory!