WITH the City Government’s strong emphasis on uplifting the state of education, Cagayan de Oro has now become Northern Mindanao’s education center and this position must never be undermined, Mayor Oscar Moreno bared Wednesday.
“The city’s educational status is our crown jewel,” Moreno told government officials and attendees during the celebration of the city’s 66th Charter Day at the Divisoria park Wednesday, June 15.
He said the presence of the outstanding schools in the city is essential in developing the future movers and shakers. “This is where future leaders of our country are being molded.”
One major factor that has contributed to this is the construction of hundreds of classrooms for elementary and secondary education making Cagayan de Oro one of the cities that can handle the influx of senior high school students under the K to 12 program of the government.
In his term report as mayor from 2013 until 2016, Moreno said he had caused the construction of 441 classrooms all over the city that can provide the demand for more school facilities for the incoming senior high school students.
Since some areas around the city have classroom shortage, students are compelled to come to Cagayan de Oro to enroll in senior high, resulting to more people flowing into the city leading to the rise in demand for services.
In 2015, the Senior High School Summit was held and, according to Moreno, it accelerated the preparation for the city’s K to 12 program.
The construction of more classrooms was achieved even with the disapproval of the majority bloc of the City Council of the mayor’s executive budget in the last three years.
The majority bloc belonged to PaDayon Pilipino, the local political party founded and headed by former city mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano who ran against Moreno, a Liberal Party member, in the last two elections.
With the constraints in budget hindering the city’s chief executive, Moreno utilized the Special Education Fund (SEF) to purchase school sites, construct school buildings, promote sports development activities in public elementary and secondary schools, train teachers, and conduct researches.
Moreno also revitalized the Local School Board, which under his term, is composed of representatives from various sectors, to serve as the mayor’s advisory body in policymaking in regard to the city’s education needs.
Capacity building
Also, among the achievements of the Moreno administration in education was the capacity-building of good governance practices to the multi-stakeholders of the school community to improve the delivery of quality education, through the help of Synergeia Foundation, Inc.
Another entity, the Ayala Foundation, Inc. chose Cagayan de Oro as one of the areas that received the Text2Teach Program which equipped Grade 5 and 6 teachers with the needed information and communication technology skills and hardware required by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education increased the prowess of the elementary teachers of Indahag Elementary School and Fr. William Masterson SJ Elementary School in the areas of pedagogy, teaching methodologies and values integration.