The Baguio Education Coordinating Council (BECC) shall be created soon following the approval of an ordinance on third and final reading.
The creation of the BECC was sought to bring about harmonious educational policies and up-to-date standards in the city.
Councilor Vladimir Cayabas, author of the ordinance, emphasized the need for an active collaboration among the Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and Department of Education guided by consistent or unified policies and regulations.
The BECC will be chaired by the mayor and co-chaired by the sanggunian’s committee on education, culture, creativity, and historical research.
There will be three vice chairpersons – the DepEd-Baguio schools division superintendent for basic education; a CHED-CAR representative for higher education; and a Tesda-CAR representative for tech-voc education.
Members are the chairperson of sanggunian’s committee on youth and sports development; the Baguio field office heads of the National Youth Commission, CHED, Tesda, Professional Commission Regulatory Commission, Civil Service Commission, and Department of Labor and Employment; the City Planning and Development Coordinator; a representative from the city’s School Governing Council; Parents and Teachers’ Association Baguio Federation president; a representative from basic education, both public and private schools; a representative from technical-vocational institutions in the city; a representative from higher education institutions; and three representatives from the private human resource, industry, and business sectors.
Serving as the city’s education quality assurance team, the education coordinating council shall lead in coordinating with the various education stakeholders from concerned government agencies and private institutions to develop systems that will check the quality of education services in the city.
The council shall likewise evaluate the collective success rate of these services wherein intervention could be introduced to further improve them.
The council is also tasked to craft policy recommendations and spearhead capacity building programs to bolster the competence of stakeholders.
An amount of P200,000 will be appropriated each year for the purpose subject to regular accounting rules and government’s auditing procedure.
The ordinance has been forwarded to the City Mayor’s Office for approval. – Jordan G. Habbiling
