Creation of Education Coordinating Council proposed

24 August 2021 – The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved on first reading a proposed ordinance creating the Baguio City Education Coordinating Council, defining its functions and appropriating funds for the said purpose.

Local legislators stated that the Baguio City Education Coordinating Council strives to establish a formidable education coordinating body to ensure better delivery of education services in the city.

Further, coordination among education bodies and other essential partner institutions surely results to more harmonious policies, up-to-date standards and aligned education outcomes.

The mandates of the said council is to take the lead in coordinating with the various education stakeholders, including government agencies and those from the private institutions; to develop systems or pathways of collaboration among education stakeholders through the said system that quality assurance in the delivery of education services in the city is on check and assured; to evaluate accomplishment reports and initiative outcomes from various education stakeholders where the data can be utilized as basis for possible introduction of education-related measures; to come up with a system of measuring the collective success rate of the education services in the city and through the said system that interventions could be initiated or introduced to further improve the quality of education services; to concomitantly serve as the city’s quality assurance team tasked to review and assist the state of education services in the city for the past 3 years as basis for coming up with tailor-fit and more strategic and responsive education programs; to do local policy recommendations center on education stakeholders’ efficient collaboration with the end result of further strengthening the hold of the city as the center of quality education in the north; to spearhead capacity building programs involving education stakeholders that promote synergy, harmony and seamless cooperation geared towards vibrant Baguio as an educational center and to represent the education sector in the City Development Council (CDC).

The Baguio City Education Coordinating Council shall be composed of the City Mayor as chairman and co-chaired by the Chairman of the City Council Committee on Education, Culture, Creativity and Historical Research with the City Schools Division Superintendent as vice-chairperson. The members of the council are the Chairman of the City Council Committee on Youth and Sports Development; National Youth Commission (NYC) representative, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) representative; Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) representative; Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) representative; Civil Service Commission (CSC) representative; Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) representative; City Planning and Development Coordinator, representative from the city’s School governing Council, Federation of Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) president; representatives from basic education, both private and public; a representative from technical-vocational institutions; representative from higher education institutions and 3 representatives from private human resource, industry and business sectors.

The ordinance provided an appropriation of P200,000 annually subject to the prevailing government accounting and auditing rules and regulations for the implementation of the provisions of the measure. – Dexter A. See