ANGELES CITY -- Vice Mayor Bryan Nepomuceno has vowed to spend P1 billion for the City College of Angeles (CCA) if he wins as mayor.
Once elected as city mayor in the upcoming May 2019 local elections, Nepomuceno said he will make sure that the funds will be poured into the public tertiary school within the first three years of his term as local chief executive.
“Part of our priority programs in the next three years is to spend at least P1 billion for additional classrooms, courses, professors, facilities and equipment at the City College of Angeles so that more and more poor students will be given free college education,” said Nepomuceno, the official candidate for mayor of the dominant local political party Partido Abe Kampampangan.
The massive funding for the CCA, according to Nepomuceno, comes in addition to more than P631 million the city has spent from 2011 to 2018 for the construction and operation of the public college.
“Through our sustained funding support, we are targeting to increase the number of enrollees at our CCA from 2,000 to 4,000 students,” Nepomuceno said.
The CCA was constructed in 2011 at a cost of some P320 million. At present, college courses offered include Bachelor in Science (BS) major in Tourism Management, BS Entrepreneurship, BS Physical Education, BS Computer Science, BS Information Systems, BS Accounting Technology, BS Technical Teachers Education, and Associate in Computer Technology, BS Psychology, BS Accountancy, BS Performing Arts, and BS English Language Studies.
“Since it opened, 1,128 students have graduated from the CCA as of 2018. Some 70 to 90 percent of the students who completed various courses already found jobs proving that CCA students have a high employability rate,” Nepomuceno disclosed.
The CCA is one of Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan's legacy projects that Nepomuceno vowed to continue and expand with the support of his running mate for vice mayor, incumbent City Councilor Edu Pamintuan.
Under their platform of governance “Edukasyon na Dekalidad, Susi sa Pangarap ng Bagong Henerasyon at Komunidad,” Nepomuceno also made an assurance that no less than P145 million per year will be spent by the local government for the improvement of elementary and secondary public schools in the city.
Nepomuceno and Pamintuan also pledged to increase funds for scholarship programs in the city.
“Each year, we will see a 20 percent increase in funding for scholarship grants, the Student Loan Program and for our Scholarship for Work Program wherein poor students will be given support for their tuition and other needs in exchange for appropriate work in the City Government,” Nepomuceno said.
During the CCA’s seventh founding anniversary last February 26, Edu Pamintuan assured Angelenos that CCA students will continue to benefit from the country’s “Universal Access to Tertiary Education Law.”
“We will specifically push for the needed programs, funding and interventions to maintain our coverage under the said law so that CCA students will be considered as ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’ and get tuition fee support from the national government,” he added.