Ayala Foundation
The dream began to take shape in June 1998. That year, the Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education, or Centex, opened the doors of its first campus in Tondo, Manila .
Supervised by Ayala Foundation, Centex offers bright students from poor families quality education at part with that of the country's best private schools. The program makes its possible for these children to realize their full potential and build a better life.
Besides giving free education, Centex removes all barriers to effective learning by providing the students with allowance for transportation, uniforms, lunch, and books designed by progressive education researchers in the United States . It also gives support programs for parents such as counseling and skills training.
At present Centex has one campus each in Tondo and Bauan, Batangas. The Batangas campus serves as a model for reproducing Centex nationwide with the aid of future institutional benefactors.
Today there are 525 children in the Manila campus and 532 in the Batangas campus. They undergo a unique formation program that imparts academic mastery and exposes their fresh minds to culture, sports and the arts. Centex nurtures them to be rooted in Filipino culture and aware of their worth within the local and global community.
Two batches have since graduated, with many enrolled in the recently established College of Holy Spirit Manila-Centex High School .
The greatest hope of Centex is that as its students grow up in this experimental project in public education they will realize that their dreams are a part of a larger dream all Filipinos share: that of renewing our country and our world.
But the dream of Centex needs all the help it can get. Building a better community through education requires a lot of cooperation and effort. Centex students benefit from the assistance of generous individuals and institutions who believe in them.
Different fund-raising projects have been undertaken to finance Centex. For example, Filipino artists BenCab, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Romulo Galicano, Malang , and Francisco Alcuaz donated art works to Centex, which reproduced them in limited edition gift items. Proceeds help augment the cost of maintaining the schools.
Perhaps the greatest lesson that Centex wants to instill in its students is the power of hope and change: hope in their talents and abilities and the desire to make a difference by their gifts to benefit others.
