MAASIN CITY, Southern Leyte, March 23 (PNA) — The nine-year-old government-funded Maasin City College (MCC) will be ready to pilot the kindergarten and 12 years of basic education (K to 12) for the new school year.
City Mayor Maloney Samaco, however, has to ask permission from the Department of Education (DepEd) considering that not all secondary schools in the city are allowed to conduct K to 12 classes.
To get ready for favorable endorsement from the DepEd, he ordered the construction of new rooms and offices, dormitories and hostel rooms for visiting education officials, renovation of existing rooms, conference room, school clinic, spacious kitchen, and audio/visual room.
Samaco expects enrollments of students from neighboring towns of the province at the MCC.
The city government also maintains the Ruperto Kadava Kangleon Museum at MCC. Kangleon was a guerrilla leader in Leyte and Samar areas during the World War II and a close ally of General Douglas MacArthur.
In order to raise teaching standards, Samaco said that MCC’s faculty members are now required to earn master’s and doctor’s degrees.
Aside from secondary education the school also offers tertiary education. In 2013, the school has produced 121 public administration and 48 social work graduates. Last year, the school had 33 graduates for public administration and 16 for social work.
MCC’s establishment was triggered by personal observations of Samaco that there are many out of school young adults because their parents cannot afford to send them to college due to poverty.
The school also offers scholarship to sons and daughters of village officials from the city’s 70 villages.
Samaco, who is on his third and last term as the city’s chief executive hopes that his successor will continue this initiative to help poor students obtain college degrees.
On the other hand, his delivery of his SOCA tackled some of his administration’s accomplishments in various programs.
It covered the improvement of health and nutrition among the malnourished children in village, sports development and awards, illegal drugs apprehensions, drug testing for city workers, intensive implementation of no smoking ordinance with fines and store closures of violators.
Other programs are agriculture development, improvement in tax collections on businesses and real estate properties, infrastructure projects like roads and village community, and improvement of city hall. (PNA)
FFC/SQM/QUIRICO M. GORPIDO JR.
