Friday, April 18, 2008 State-owned college to open in Oro By Annabelle L. Ricalde
AS THE first City Public College will formally open this coming June, some 1,592 students who passed the scholarship examination are among the first batch of scholars to avail the free college education.
The students came from the 16 National Government secondary schools in Cagayan de Oro, particularly in the 2nd District where the scholarship examination was conducted by the Testing Team.
The P20 million Public College project was design to provide better education to the poor but deserving students who cannot afford to continue their college education. It is also one of the main programs of Representative Rufus Rodriguez of the city's 2nd District.
"Education should be available to all and for the first time a City Public College is now a reality," Rodriguez said.
However, the congressman explained that of the 1,592 scholars only the top 600 will be given scholarship for free ladderize courses while the remaining scholars will to enroll any technical courses they want at Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).
Initially, the City Public College has offer a two-year ladderize courses of Practical Nursing/Associate in Health Education, Information Technology, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Technology and Bachelor of Science in Automotive Technology.
MPSC and STI will host the non-degree programs of the two-year ladderize courses and ensure the level of quality of all curricular offerings in the public college. Tesda agrees to provide funds for the students scholars of the public college.
City Public College is a collaboration project of Mindanao Polytechnic State College, STI College (Private HEI), Tesda and Congressman Rodriguez for the scholarship funds and to provide capital seed for the initial stages of operation of the public college.
The collaboration was officially sealed with the signing of the memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the congressman and the officials of MPSC, STI College, TESDA and CHED.
With this development, MPSC's College President Ricardo Rotoras said the project in one way or the other will somehow ease their sense of guilt knowing they can now able to help poor but deserving students in the city.
"It's a sad reality that Philippines is not a rich country and such plight, education is most affected," Rotoras said.
For his part, STI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Colbert Rabaya ensures STI's commitment to the students enrolling under the consortium, so with Tesda officials.
"For the past eight years all state universities did not received any support and it's a sad reality that Philippines is not a rich country," Rotoras said.
