Education for all by 2015 - Rivera

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (26 August 2013) – City Mayor Ronnel Rivera spearheaded the signing of the commitment of achieving Education for All (EFA) Goals in 2015 along with other education stakeholders during the first Education Summit in the city Friday (August 23).

In his speech during the summit Rivera said that the education summit is just a “step towards achieving concrete and lasting reforms in the educational system of the city.”

According to the mayor, he organized the education summit along with the Local Government Unit (LGU) and internal and external education stakeholders to address the basic educational needs of the public schools in GenSan.

Rivera also disclosed that he will be tapping privately owned companies to engage in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) with the LGU to aid possible projects on education as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

During the summit students, teachers, principals, supervisors, Parents Teachers Association (PTA), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and private partners were able to come up with recommendations and proposed solutions to recurring problems in the education sector.

Participants such as the group of student councils from different schools in the city are grateful to the education summit because that gave them the assurance that the local government and Department of Education XII (DepEd XII) are taking actions to advance the education in the city.

Diosdado Ablanido, schools division superintendent, said DepEd would want to come up with a “systematic program” that will sustain the envisioned educational reforms.

Rivera assured the attendees of the summit that the results and recommendations of all the stakeholders along with the proposed EFA program will be incorporated in the Executive-Legislative Agenda (ELA).

Some of the common issues that were identified in the EFA Goals in 2015 are the lack of educational facilities, increasing rate of dropouts, low score percentage in National Achievement Test (NAT), teachers’ competence and the “No Collection Policy.”

City Councilor Rosalita Nuñez, chairperson of the Committee for Education of the Sangguniang Panglungsod, said that the current administration is serious in solving the issues of the educational system in the city that is why they are eager to listen to the people that are directly involve in education.

The long term goal according to Nuñez and Mayor Rivera is to propel the educational situation of the city so that students can be more competitive on the national level.

Education is one of the major flagship programs of Mayor Rivera under his “CLEAN GenSan” Project (Creating a Liveable Environment for All in GenSan towards Nation building). (GENSAN INFO OFFICE/Ian John Lagare)