Solar-powered school. AboitizPower and the Aboitiz Foundation install solar panels with battery storage in Kabangbang Elementary School in Davao City (pictured), giving the far-flung school access to electricity and its benefits.
Last mile schools in the Philippines are under-resourced and disadvantaged learning facilities, typically isolated by geography and still unreached by basic utilities like electricity. With little else, about 1.6 million young Filipino learners cling to the hope of education through its underserved classrooms.
While almost 99% of public schools already have access to electricity, the Department of Education said that over 1,500 still go through the day-to-day without it, with traditional electrical connections rendered difficult due to an area’s inaccessibility and remoteness.
The resulting learning gap in these unenergized last mile schools is real. A policy brief by the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies found that primary and secondary schools with electricity performed 10-12% better than those without, based on National Achievement Test (NAT) scores. In particular, among the NAT subjects, “science has a larger median improvement when the school is energized”.
In these “off-grid” sites, solar panels are bringing rays of hope to students who aspire for a brighter future. The Aboitiz Group’s CSR arm, the Aboitiz Foundation, and its power company, Aboitiz Power Corporation (AboitizPower), is helping bring electric light to these schools for the very first time through solar energy.
Through their AuroraPH project, which began in 2024, unenergized last mile schools receive solar photovoltaic systems, WiFi, and digital learning tools, providing immediate and measurable gains to students and teachers alike. Electricity increases teaching and studying hours thanks to the improved lighting conditions and enables access to computers, projectors, televisions, speakers, and printers, empowering teachers to go beyond the confines of the blackboard.
Visual learning. By helping give access to electricity and the internet, AuroraPH affords teachers with better visual aids through computers, screens, and printed outputs, leading to enhanced comprehension, improved retention, and increased engagement among their students.
“One of the biggest challenges was technology. On how we can keep up with the trends outside; how we can more effectively explain so that students can understand better,” recounted Judy R. Patac, School Head of Lapinig Elementary School, a beneficiary in Davao City.
In the city, the Lapinig and Kabangbang elementary schools were already outfitted with five-kilowatt solar panels with battery storage, ending decades of poorly lit and unventilated classrooms. This was all thanks to the Aboitiz Foundation and Davao Light and Power Co., an AboitizPower distribution utility.
“The children will have a better understanding when they see actual pictures,” Patac explained. “For example, the bodies of water. They are only familiar with a river since that is what they have here. They don’t know what an ocean looks like. But now, the teacher can show just how wide it is; they’ll see how there are bigger bodies of water than a river.”
In Benguet, AuroraPH also reached three remote schools — the Bakian Guinawan Elementary School, Marcelo Marquez National High School, and Pimingan Elementary School — through the Aboitiz Foundation and Aboitiz Renewables, Inc.
“Before, we had to use lamps to study, and it was hard,” shared Kyla Mae Taaca, a 16-year-old student from Pimingan. “Now, we can research, join online activities, and actually see what we're writing.”
AuroraPH reaches off-grid areas in Benguet. A student from Pimingan Elementary School connects to the internet through the school’s new Wi-Fi network powered by the solar power system installed by the Aboitiz Foundation and Aboitiz Renewables.
With the goal to energize a total of 300 disadvantaged schools in the Philippines, AuroraPH is aligned with both national developmental goals and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 calling for “Quality Education”, or “[ensuring] inclusive and equitable quality education and [promoting] lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
To date, aside from the aforementioned schools, AuroraPH has already reached classrooms in Olongapo City and Bataan Province in Central Luzon and Lapu-lapu City in Central Visayas. It builds on the Aboitiz Foundation’s work of over 35 years of improving public school facilities, expanding scholarship programs, and providing opportunities for postgraduate learning in innovation and technology.
AuroraPH also aligns with AboitizPower’s purpose of Transforming Energy for a Better World, which means supporting nation-building by providing reliable and ample energy solutions at a competitive price, with host communities’ shared prosperity in mind, and with due consideration for the environment.
