CEBU, Philippines — To ensure accessible education of residents in the mountain barangay, an extension campus of Cebu Technological University (CTU) will soon be constructed in the Barangay Guba, Cebu City.
This, as the City Council authorized outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña to sign the memorandum of agreement between the city and the Cebu Technological University and North District Congressman Raul Del Mar.
“The Cebu City Government recognizes the necessity to establish a state college/university in one of the mountain barangays in the city, particularly in the first district, to ensure accessible quality education of the residents therein,” reads the approved resolution of City Councilor Joy Augustus Young.
Young, chairman of the council’s committee on education, said it is also the desire of Del Mar to establish an extension campus in the mountain barangay.
In the approved MOA, it stated that there are several high school graduates who want to further their studies and obtain college degrees but are hindered due to financial constraints and that the tertiary institutions are mostly located in the urban areas.
The agreement is pursuant to CTU’s mandate which “shall primarily provide advanced professional and technical instruction for special purposes, advanced studies in industrial trade, agriculture, fishery, forestry, engineering, aeronautics and the land-based programs, arts and sciences, information technology and other relevant fields of study. It shall undertake research, production and extension services, and provide progressive leadership across the areas of specialization for global empowerment.”
Del Mar is tasked to lobby for necessary funds for the construction of the school buildings and other facilities for the Guba Extension Campus, adding that he should also ensure that the campus will have an annual maintenance and other operating expenses which will be included in the CTU’s annual budget in the General Appropriations Act.
The city government, for its part, will donate a property where the campus will be established.
CTU will render technical assistance for the completion of the requirements imposed by the Commission on Higher Education and all other government agencies needed for the construction of an extension campus.
It will also be responsible for the operation of the extension campus like the salaries and wages of the instructors, conducive learning environment of the classroom facilities, among others.
“The District Representative and the LGU desired that the extension campus be situated in Barangay Guba, a mountain barangay in Cebu City, for the convenience of the students considering its proximity and most especially to the parents supporting their children that it may ease and lighten the burden of expenses needed to send their children to school in the city since they will no longer need to spend for the boarding houses, transportation expenses, food allowance, and other miscellaneous expenses,” the MOA reads. — MBG (FREEMAN)