Cotabato City—The Bangsamoro Government is set to award some 7,000 study grant slots to students of technical skills development training through its Ministry of Basic, Higher, and Technical Education’s (MBHTE).
MBHTE Minister Mohaguer Iqbal of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) said the regional government was providing the scholarship program to potential youth candidates, under the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) of his ministry.
Among potential beneficiaries are children of former Moro combatants as part of the Normalization Process provided under the Annexes of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, Iqbal said.
The TVET scholarship package includes Skills Training (ST) Entrepreneurship Training (ET), Values Transformation Training (VTT), with a National Assessment Program, and that the intended beneficiaries will have a monthly stipend of P 3,000.00 each from a Training Support Fund of P100.00 per day per student.
Iqbal said the scholarship program is designed to increase potential learners’ access to TVET especially at the community level, in support to the BARMM leadership’s call for ‘Moral Governance’; to respond to the region’s 12-Point agenda, which include addressing the pressing challenges on education and poverty; and to provide assistance to students through collaborative governance.
As a distinguished member of the Bangsamoro Parliament, Iqbal said the technical skills training and educational program also formed part of the implementation of the normalization process contained in the Annex on Normalization of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).
“[TVET] is ultimately designed to help provide for the needs of communities and their respected leaders with greater emphasis to Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Communities of the Indigenous People, and marginalized sectors of the society,” Iqbal added.
Applicants, from 20 to 60 years old, are qualified to enroll for the scholarship program as long as they are currently not recipients of other government scholarships and are not in education or training.
Iqbal said Bangsamoro people, including non-Muslims, are welcome to apply as long as they are residents of the provinces covered by BARMM, including those from the 63 barangays comprising BARMMS’ special geographic areas in North Cotabato.
Faida Latip Sr., specialist of the MBHTE-Technical Education and Skills Development (TESD), said: “We are going to create a ministry-led Regional Scholarship Monitoring Team from our provincial office in order to capacitate the implementing team, and monitor our field operations for the scholarship.”
MBHTE-TESD is still finalizing the process and the guidelines on how to apply for slots in the scholarship program.
