Albay's free college education program seeks more scholars

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines — The Albay government through its partner tertiary institutions seeks for additional scholars under its Albay Higher Education Contribution Scheme (AHECS) this second semester as over 3,000 of its 13,600 scholarship slots remain available until yesterday.

Data gathered by The STAR showed that Albay’s scholarships literally brought school dropouts, over-aged, married, abandoned, or even physically handicapped back to the classrooms, with revived hope of finishing their college education which was disrupted, primarily by lack of financial support.

To date, Albay has already made available a total of 13,600 scholarship slots, 10,000 of which were filled up and awarded this school year, through AHECS, probably the biggest free-college education granting program ever to be offered by a local government unit.

Unlike the usually offered scholarship schemes which require, high-grades and excellent scholastic high school records, among others, AHECS prospective scholars need only to present proofs that they have finished their secondary course and that they are indigent, to qualify for scholarship.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, fondly called here as “father of scholarships” due to his various scholar-granting and other education support schemes, said that he intentionally designed AHECS to attract any interested Albayano to go back to school, regardless of his present status in life.

Salceda said the main objective of all these scholarships is to provide every household in the province at least one college graduate.

“We do not put any other agenda in all these education support programs but to have at least a college graduate in every Albayano home,” Salceda told The STAR.