| Description |
The School of Living Traditions (SLT) is a flagship program by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), which is the overall policy-making, coordinating and grants-giving agency for the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine culture and arts. Historically, the SLTs were created through the initiatives of community representatives in the NCCA’s Subcommission on Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts to preserve and integrate traditional culture and its various creative expressions as a dynamic part of the national cultural mainstream. It should be noted that the SLT program was instituted in 1995, eight years prior to the Philippines’ ratification of the 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Thus, the SLT program is geared towards revitalizing and safeguarding traditional culture and practices through the transfer of indigenous knowledge and skills from the cultural masters to the young learners in the community. The SLT is not part of the formal Philippine educational system. It operates as a community-based non-formal center of learning involving masters and apprentices. The SLT’s mode of teaching is usually oral, and is grounded in “learning by doing” philosophy. |
