LAKAS: Leading Alliances for Knowledge Advancement and Social Accountability. National Training on Social Accountability through Internal Quality Assurance in Basic Medical Education (Philippines) 

About the training:

LAKAS is a national capacity-building program designed to support Philippine medical schools in operationalising social accountability and primary health care–oriented outcome-based education (PHC-OBE) through internal quality assurance (IQA). It addresses the persistent gap between policy and institutional practice by positioning social accountability as a managed dimension of educational quality. The program uses the Indicators for Social Accountability Tool (ISAT 2.0) as a structured entry point for institutional self-assessment, action planning, implementation, and continuous quality improvement. LAKAS follows a blended, longitudinal design integrating learning, mentored implementation, reflection, and refinement. Rather than treating social accountability as a standalone training topic, the program supports participating medical schools in developing and implementing a focused Institutional Change Project (ICP) and translating learning into institutional action through internal quality assurance mechanisms.

Expected learning outcomes:

By the end of the program, participating institutions will be supported to:

• Strengthen conceptual and operational understanding of social accountability, PHC-OBE, and IQA as interlinked frameworks for educational quality.
• Identify critical institutional social accountability gaps using ISAT 2.0.
• Develop and implement a focused Institutional Change Project (ICP) and Project Action Plan (PAP) using internal quality assurance approaches.
• Generate institutional learning and early evidence of impact to inform future scaling and continuous quality improvement.
• Strengthen institutional capacity to integrate social accountability into governance, curriculum, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant quality-assurance processes.
• Build a continuing peer-learning and Community of Practice network among participating medical schools.

Target group:

Philippine medical schools were invited to nominate two participants per institution. The target participants are leaders or coordinators whose roles relate to quality assurance, accreditation or outcomes-based education, curriculum, faculty development, governance, or medical education leadership.

Eligible nominees included:

• Deans,
• Medical Education Unit Heads,
• Program or Clinical Coordinators,
• Associate or Assistant Deans,
• Department Heads,
• Quality Assurance, Accreditation, or OBE Officers,
• Curriculum or Faculty Development Leads.

The inaugural 2026 cohort consists of 12 medical schools from across the Philippines, with two participants representing each institution.

Training dates:

• Workshop 1: 18th- 20th March, 2026
• Workshop 2: 29th-31st July, 2026

Training committee

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