FOR the second time, Cagayan de Oro was awarded the prestigious Seal of Good Education Governance, an award given to local government units for their outstanding education governance.
The award was received by City Mayor Oscar Moreno and members of the Local School Board during the 12th Washington Sycip National Education Summit Thursday, September 6 at the Philippine International Convention Center. The award was conferred by Synergia Foundation, a coalition of individuals, institutions, and organizations working to improve the quality of basic education.
In his Facebook post, Department of Education-Cagayan de Oro Schools Division Superintendent Jonathan dela Peña said this year, 4 domains were measured for the award.
"Based on incremental gains and improved performance outcomes such as decrease of non-readers and frustration readers, increase in education expenditures via the expanded Local School Board, empowerment of School Governing Councils to craft and implement change initiatives and increase in other key performance indicators in education," he said.
Since 2013, the Moreno administration has built over 600 classrooms and a total of 15 new campuses in the city, mostly in barangays where classroom shortage is a continuing problem.
To do this, Moreno created an expanded Local School Board composed of members of the academe, interfaith groups, the youth, business sector, non-teaching force, parents and teachers associations, Department of Education officials and the City Government's key officials.
Among the qualifications of the award are as follows: local government units must have a broadened membership and functions of their Local School Board, schools should have functional School Governing Councils, a significant improvement of the youth's reading performance, and at least 15 percent decrease of non-readers and frustrated readers in the schools.
Last year, the City also received the award along with other 24 local government units in the country.