Educators honor PGMA

Manila (25 June) — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was honored yesterday by the country’s biggest organization of private schools with a testimonial event in Malacanang during which her support to the country’s private education sector was highlighted.

The umbrella-group Philippine Association of Private Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAPSCU) also thanked the outgoing Chief Executive for including the private education in her priority programs.

“When you made the pronouncement that the Filipino nation should take advantage of the flatness of the world and move into the first world in 20 years and created the Presidential Task Force for Education (PTFE) to assess, plan and monitor the entire educational system, making a firm commitment to truly improve the educational system towards producing a globally-competitive workforce, nurturing the future leaders of our nation and thereafter adopting the recommendations and action plan for the implementation of the Philippine Main Education Highway, Your Excellency reminded us that the human mind is the nation’s fundamental resource and that our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education,” the PAPSCU said in a certificate of recognition given to the President.

The certificate was signed jointly by Jose Paulo E. Campos, PAPSCU president; Alejandro Escano, vice president of the Technical Vocational Schools Associations of the Philippines (TEVSAPHIL); Vicente Fabella, president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) and; Daniel Dial, president of the Association of Christian Schools Colleges and Universities (ACSCU).

Summing up its role in the country’s education sector, PAPSCU officials said that private education helps enrich democracy. And they added they were gratified by the President’s support to private education.

“Unlike its public counterpart, private education rarely developed according to a national plan where there is a dominant blueprint for forms, structures, pursuits and policies. Nobody can safely predict the total shape of private education in the future, or its size. And variation not only enhances the public-private partnership in education, it also enriches democracy,” the manifesto said.

The President was then handed the plaque of recognition for the “education legacy you left the Filipino people. Thank you for this and we hope you continue to support private education and consider it a priority of your legislative agenda,” the manifesto said. (PIA-MMIO)