The City’s public high schools will soon produce graduates with competitive advantage to get employed.

This is one of the future innovative plans City Mayor Sherwin T. Gatchalian announced in his State of Education Address delivered during the Valenzuela Education Summit 2011 held at the Valenzuela City Auditorium over the weekend.

“All of the public high schools are equipped with state-of-the-art computer laboratories which we must utilize not just for simple computer operations but for more advanced information technology knowledge,” he said.

The City Government, through the full spectrum education project, WIN ang Edukasyon Program, is in dialogue with DepEd-Valenzuela to draft a new ICT curriculum geared towards making Valenzuelano students proficient in computer programming languages, and web design and development softwares.  “These are the short-term courses they take up in computer schools, such as STI, Datamex and AMA, but soon, students would learn these during their four years in high school,” Mayor WIN added.

The plan, which was loaded by educators, parents and students in the audience, was drawn after the fact that most high school graduates would either take two-year ICT course or would not go to college at all due to high cost of tertiary education.  That is why, Mayor WIN thought it is the City’s obligation to equip students with substantial knowledge they can readily use after graduating from high school to get employment.

Likewise, the current and future education programs and projects under the Mayor’s “Good Education is Good Governance” stance aim to produce employable college graduates by offering courses which guarantee high employability, such as, Accountancy and Engineering through the city-funded Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela (PLV),

Mayor WIN admitted that these are difficult courses.  “But we observed that graduates of difficult courses have high chances of getting employed compared to those who took easy courses that are getting over-enrolled with many graduates through the years who are struggling to find a job suited to them.”

The Valenzuela Polytechnic College (Valpoly) shall also be expanded to accommodate more students who are taking up technical vocational and ladderized courses.  “Technical vocational skills, such as welding and fabrication, are in demand, not only locally but also abroad.  Valpoly will be the prime institution to train Valenzuelanos in this field,” the Mayor said.

Mayor WIN also presented the City’s latest achievements in education.  With more than 100 classrooms being built yearly, the City has able to reduce the student-to-classroom ratio at 43:1 for elementary schools and 45:1 for secondary schools.

Free worktexts, notebooks, and comprehensive trainings of teachers ushered Valenzuela City in becoming NCR’s number 1 in the School Year 2010-2011 National Achievement Test (NAT) results.

Synergeia Foundation, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Milwida “Nene” M. Guevara lauded Mayor WIN’s efforts to uplift the education system in the City.  She said in Filipino, that she “has not met any mayor who has a solid and complete vision in education from early childhood to college which is also translated into action.  While other leaders would opt for mere infrastructure as centrepiece projects because of swift visible tangible results to boast about, and for some, with chances for kickback all set, Mayor WIN chose to nurture the children through education.  Raising the average score of more than 70,000 students in the NAT and making elementary students the number 1 in NCR are noteworthy accomplishments.”

“Mahirap ang reporma sa edukasyon.  Para akapin ito ng isang alkalde, tunay siyang kahanga-hanga dahil hindi niya pananagutan ang edukasyon ng mga bata,  kundi ng pangulo ng Pilipinas.  (Education reform is a tough task.  For a mayor to embrace the responsibility is truly admirable because education is not his responsibility, but of the president of the country.)” She added.

As public schools are performing better than private schools in the NAT, with some schools scoring over 90%, and in aim of making all Valenzuelano excellent students, public school students will soon benefit from the WIN ang Edukasyon program, because “Hindi lang dapat ang mga magagaling na bata ang tinututukan kundi ang lahat ng bata.  (Not only the students who excel should be given focused, but all the students.)” Guevarra ended.

Also sharing their commitments in education during the summit were District 1 Representative Cong. REX T. Gatchalian, Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Education Chairman Councilor Gerry Esplana, WIN ang Edukasyon Program Action Officer Councilor Lorie Natividad-Borja and DepEd- Valenzuela Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Flordeliza R. Mayari.