In 2017, a Memorandum of Agreement among the Department of Education (DepEd), UNICEF, and SEAMEO INNOTECH was forged to address common educational issues and priorities in support of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on inclusive and equitable education for all, particularly the access of the most disadvantaged learners to quality learning opportunities. The tripartite cooperation agreed on pursuing knowledge sharing as well as collaboration on educational programs for disadvantaged learning communities in the Philippines within the next six years.

The Technical Support to Multigrade Program in Philippine Education (TS-MPPE) is one of the initial collaborative areas under the tripartite agreement. This project aims to determine the effectiveness of multigrade education–a class with multiple grade levels conducted in one classroom and handled by a single teacher–as a modality of delivery in basic education.

The project was implemented from February 2017 to May 2019 in three phases. Phase 1 included the review of the overall effectiveness of MPPE as a strategy to widen access to quality education for marginalized communities. Phase 2 involved the development of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System and Tools to promote continuous improvement, quality assurance, and effectiveness of the Multigrade program. Lastly, Phase 3 was about building the capabilities of Multigrade implementers in various governance levels on the use of the developed M&E system and tools.