SJDM FCEER is an educational advocacy happening in the province of Bulacan. The acronym stands for San Jose Del Monte Free College Entrance Exam Review. It is a program that seeks to help graduating high school students from the different schools in San Jose Del Monte City to prepare themselves for College Entrance Exams minus the usual exorbitant fees associated with it.

sjdm fceer

FCEER Graduation

The People Behind SJDM FCEER

SJDM FCCER or simply FCEER used to be known as the College Entance Test Review (CETR) when it started. The idea originated from the mind of Romel Rafor Jaime, a true-blooded San Josenyo who graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP). He found support in his batch mates Euel Von Asuncion, Jay Dela Cruz, and Berndatte Magsalin. Together, they all served as volunteer instructors from the start of the program in the Summer of 2006. Today, there are about 30 volunteer instructors in all, some of whom were former students in the program.

Romel Rafor Jaime

Romel Rafor Jaime

The first 7 years saw the program being held in the founder’s alma mater, San Jose Del Monte High School. In its 8th year, the program was transferred to Paradise Farms National High School located at Tungkong Mangga in the City of San Jose Del  Monte. This is expected to be the venue for the succeeding batches of the program.

Why This Advocacy

From the founder’s own story, it is quite easy to understand why he chose to focus on this particular educational advocacy. Sharing his story about his own financial difficulty at a time when he was still dreaming of entering UP, he knew exactly how it felt to be deprived of that chance. Prevented by his own circumstances to attend a review offered by volunteers of UP LAKAN because he did not have Forty Pesos, he had to make do with asking those who were able to attend to share with him their reviewers. The rest they say is history.

His short work stint in a Review Center just made him realize more how impossible it was for most San Josenyo high school students to be able to afford to pay for a review. He made a personal resolve to do something about it. He started this program even before he graduated from UP.

The SJDM FCEER Program

 

The SJDM FCEER Program was envisioned as a free program that aims to provide extensive review for the purpose of taking College Entrance Examinations. It is practically free except for the payment of the review materials. The first four batches had to shell out Five Pesos a day for this while the fifth batch up to the latest batch had to prepare Ten Pesos each day. It has to be noted that these amounts go straight to the payment of photocopying services and no money is collected from the students during the program.

Review programs are held during summer starting from the first Saturday and Sunday of April up to the first Saturday and Sunday of June. The estimated total cost for the program is a mere PHP 160. To date there are about 1,200 students who have benefited from the program.

Future Plans

The program is expected to continue but will temporarily be stopped to adjust to the situation arising from the K-12 system requiring additional 2 years for high school study. The program handlers intend to use the two year lull to upgrade their review materials and teaching methods. They expect to be ready to return in the year 2017.

My Say

I purposely asked for  Romel Jaime’s permission to post this article because I was impressed with his educational advocacy. He could have easily chosen to use whatever advantage he may have gained to himself in being able to study and graduate from a school that not everybody will have a chance to be in. Instead, he used the opportunity to “pay it forward” and that in itself deserves much more space than this blog post can offer.

I met Romel in the awarding of the Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs 2013 as a co-awardee. He is also known as Librero Tres  of San Josenyong Gala , the name of his blog. Knowing him and his advocacy has inspired me to look for more bloggers with their own advocacy to feature here. I hope I will be able to find more, proving to one and all what I’ve known all along that bloggers are socially relevant human beings as well.