PGMA launches P4-B education fund
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo launched a special P4-billion education fund that is expected to multiply five-fold the number of student-loan beneficiaries and finance the expansion of state universities and colleges all over the country.
In a speech before the officers and members of the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) which held its 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Expo at the Hotel Sofitel along Roxas Boulevard in Manila, the President lauded the LCF for its support and for recognizing the importance of education as a strategic and sustainable solution to poverty.
"Today, I launch a P4-billion fund for student loans, business-funded training, and SUC (state universities and colleges) expansion under CHED (Commission on Higher Education), increasing beneficiaries of student loans from 40,000 last year to 200,000 this year," she said.
From its first CSR Week in 2002 up to June this year, the LCF has so far spent P3.8 billion for CSR programs, "with the bulk allocated for education," Marilou Erni, LCF president, said.
The President further announced that in the next three years, her administration will also be "investing P3 billion in engineering research and development technology to achieve a critical mass of Research and Development (R&D)-capable manpower over the next three years."
This, as the UNESCO Institute for Statistics recommends for developing countries a population ratio of researchers, scientists and engineers of 340 per million population. The country's current ratio is only 48 per million population.
President Arroyo also thanked the private sector for its "contribution to computer linkage to 1,500 out of 5,000 public high schools in the country," and hoped that all public high schools could be linked by the end of her term in 2010.
(PNA)