The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved on first reading a proposed ordinance establishing a local education office in the city, defining its functions and appropriating funds for the said purpose.
Under the proposed ordinance authored by Councilor Vladimir Cayabas, the local government shall sustain a resilient city powered by innovative and responsive education, thus, the local education office shall thrive to further strengthen the city’s education program anchored with the goal of literacy rate and competence level of its citizenry.
Further, it aims to position the city as an education and learning city where opportunities for continuous learning as well as human resource development are created.
The ordinance stated that there shall be an established local education office in the city government headed by a career officer with the position of Local Chief Education Officer who will be appointed by the local chief executive and shall be confirmed by the local legislative body. Priority shall be given to qualified personnel who had been immersed to the local academe for at least 5 years as his or her relevant experience.
Among the overall functions of the said office include, to take the lead in formulating the city’s local education vision and agenda aligned with the national government’s education road map; take the lead in actively promoting education and continuous learning to all citizens of the city; study and recommend on the viability of putting up the City College of Baguio to be managed by the local government; closely assist public schools with land title issues and processing their school site titles; take the lead in the conduct of yearly assessment and education impact survey relative to human resource and sustainable development to determine the collective success rate of the education program in general of the city and report such overall result to the local chief executive and to the city council for legislative measures if needed; choate and maintain updated data pertinent to education programs of the city like number of enrolled learners and students including out of school youth, completers and graduates to include percentage of dropouts, graduates per course and discipline, rate of licensure examination and national achievement test passers, rate of employment and the overall performance of the city relative to education; take the lead in coordinating, collaborating and forging education ties with various education stakeholders from both government agencies and those from the private institutions; formulate measures and implement programs for the continuous promotion of students and learners welfare in the city in coordination with other education stakeholders; spearhead the conduct of periodical research and development relative to improving the quality and state of education in the city; serve as the office in charge in all city sponsored educational assistance or scholarship grants and to make sure of its proper and equitable implementation; perform policy recommendation centered on powering up the state of local education with end result for further strengthening the hold of the city as the center of education of the north and eventually as an education city by embodying the principle of good local education governance and performing such other related functions as deemed needed.
The ordinance claims that the fund allocation for the Office of the City Mayor shall be adjusted to incorporate the needed amount necessary for the efficient operation of the local education office and shall be included in the annual budget of the city every year thereafter.