Jose Vasquez Aguilar

1959 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service from the Philippines. Jose Vasquez Aguilar is an education pioneer noted for his “distinguished leadership,” particularly in the promotion of the community school movement in the Philippines. From the year he first taught in the one-teacher school of his home barrio, as only an intermediate school graduate, he has devoted his energies to this work. He developed his community school concept when he became Division Superintendent of Public Schools in Iloilo province (Philippines). An integral part of his Iloilo experiment was the use of the vernacular as the medium of instruction in the primary grades, and linked the classroom instruction to the school-community program. The Bureau of Public Schools supported his effort. Other superintendents adopted some of his methods and evolved new ones of their own and, subsequently, the Bureau adopted the school-community scheme and the use of the vernacular in its national program.