Pamintuan: ‘City College not competing with big schools’

ANGELES CITY — Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan clarified on Tuesday that the City College of Angeles (CCA) will not be in competition with large private colleges and universities in this city.

Pamintuan said that CCA would be catering only to impoverished students who cannot afford high tuition fees.

“The City College will cater to poor students. We are not here to compete with big schools but to provide a chance to those who cannot pay P30,000 or P40,000 to study,” Pamintuan told reporters during his regular breakfast meeting with the local media.

Pamintuan said he has ordered the strict screening of incoming students at the CCA this school year to ensure that the standards set by the City Government are met.

“We are not competing with big schools. That will not happen since our target market are those who really to do not have the means to pay for their studies,” Pamintuan said in response to the worries of school owners here.

In line with this development, the CCA board has successfully established a set of admission guidelines and requirements for aspiring enrollees and transferees.

Freshmen applicants will be required to submit the following: an authenticated F-138 from the school principal, a certificate of good moral character from the school where applicants graduated and a certification of barangay clearance.

For transferees, they will need to submit a certificate of good moral character and honorable dismissal, a photocopy of the transcript of records duly certified by the Office of the Registrar of the transferee’s school and a certification of barangay clearance.

Both freshmen and transferees will have to comply with a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 80 percent. If a student, however, has a GPA below 80 percent, he can be admitted, but on a probationary status.

Pamintuan said the CCA will receive a yearly funding from the Office of the City Mayor to ensure sustainability.

Initial courses to be offered by the college include associate degrees in Computer Science, Information Systems and Tourism, which are ladderized programs that can be pursued further in Bachelors’ Degree courses.

They also proposed that the costs of tuition fees will not go over P7,000 with P150 – P170 per unit. This is placed in contrast with private college institutions which tuition fees go as high as P20,000 to P100,000 for more prestigious schools.

But Pamintuan said that even now, he has been subsidizing for the enrollment of students belonging below the poverty line. He added that his administration will also be shouldering the education of dozens of scholars to provide more opportunity for indigent students.