MARIA RITA D. LUCAS, PhD, is a teacher educator and an early childhood education practitioner and advocate. She was recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award during the Centro Escolar University (CEU) centennial in 2007, and the Escolarian Exemplar Award, given by the CEU Alumni Foundation, as an innovative educational entrepreneur, for establishing a mall-based preschool and innovating curriculum for more than a decade now.
Her involvement in government initiatives for early childhood education includes being a member of the Technical Panel for Early Childhood and Special Education of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), helping develop the DepEd Kindergarten Curriculum Framework, participating in law and policy-making related to care and development of young children. She was team leader during the crafting of the National Early Learning Curriculum (NELC) of the ECCD Council. She is author of teacher education textbooks and has co-edited an international publication on Education Policies and Innovations published by ACEI Hong Kong-Macau. She served for four years (2016-19) as assistant secretary in the National Board of the Philippine Association for Teachers and Educators (PAFTE), and currently Chairperson of PAFTE-NCR Chapter. She has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology (Magna cum laude), a Master’s degree in Psychology (with the highest academic distinction), a Master’s degree in Special Education with a specialization in Early Childhood Education, and a Doctorate in Educational Management (Excellence in Research Award). She is currently the Dean of the School of Education-Liberal Arts-Music- Social Work at CEU. In February 2021, after a year and a half of the program, she obtained her Certificate in Early Education Leadership from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
