Capiz scholarship program benefits more students
Roxas City -- Thirteen academically outstanding students from low-income families in Capiz will enter college this schoolyear as the 5th batch of scholars under the Viable and Innovative College Scholarship Program (VIC) of the provincial government here.
Gov. Vicente Bermejo launched the program in 2003 as part of his development agenda to help poor but deserving students acquire a college education, which would eventually help them find better opportunities in life.
The program now has benefited almost 90 students about 20 of whom have already graduated this year from a degree course in Nursing, Accountancy, or Agra-Fishery in accredited tertiary schools here.
Eleven of the first graduates under VIC scholarship took up Bachelor of Science in Nursing while about half a dozen are set to leave for Taiwan to work there as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
As in the past, the provincial government signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the new batch of scholars during a simple program held at the Hall of Governors of the Provincial Capitol. The MOA lays down the responsibilities of the province and scholars relative the scholarship.
Gov. Bermejo said he has institutionalized the program in the provincial government to make college education accessible to other students whose families could not afford to send them to school but who possess the proper values and mental capacity to go through a tertiary education.
Bermejo extolled the new batch of scholars as "one of the best" even as he advised them to accompany excellence in studies with excellence in values as knowledge is dangerous without the proper values.
The scholarship program covers academic courses in agri-fishery, health and accountancy and entitles the student scholars to free tuition and book allowance.
The LGU-initiated scholarship program jives with the pronouncements of President Arroyo to make education accessible to all Filipino students as the government now has the resources to make it possible on the back of a growing economy. Also present at the MOA signing were Vice Governor Victor Tanco, Sr., Provincial Administrator Ronald Amigo, Vicente Jore, chair of the scholarship committee and committee members including Provincial Budget Officer Antonio Arbis and Provincial Planning and Development Coordinator Antonio Asis, and some parents. The other members of the committee are Provincial Auditor lawyer Walter Meñez and Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) Member Vincent Fritz Cruz-Am.
(PIA)