UCPB and its affiliate Coconut Industry Investment Fund companies are funding the college study and technical-vocational training of 194 more coconut farmer children in school year 2017-2018.
The new scholars will bring to 2,894 the total number of children of coconut farmers who have received grants for a four- to five-year college course or a 12- to 16-month technical-vocational course from the UCPB-CIIF Scholarship Program since its launch in 2003.
Coconut farmers are among the poorest in the country. Most could not afford to send their children to college or even trade school.
The UCPB-CIIF Scholarship Program, which is being implemented by the UCPB-CIIF Foundation, pays for the scholars’ tuition and other school fees and provides them with a monthly living allowance.
“We have been supporting the program from the start and will continue to do so because it is helping to uplift the living condition of coconut farmers, which is the bank’s common social mandate with the CIIF companies,” UCPB president and chief executive Higinio Macadaeg, Jr. said.
The CIIF companies supporting the scholarship program are Cocolife, UCPB General Insurance, Cocochem and the CIIF Oil Mills Group.
Macadaeg cited the results of the annual survey conducted last year which showed that 80 percent of the scholar-graduates are earning incomes with 86 percent percent of them earning enough to be able to regularly send money home for their families’ daily expenses and their siblings’ education.
The UCPB-CIIF Scholarship Program has so far produced 1,467 graduates, 756 of whom earned technical-vocational skill certifications from six Don Bosco Training Centers and 711, college degrees from 71 state colleges and universities. Another 269 scholars are graduating this school year.
The UCPB-CIIF scholars come from 63 coconut provinces from as far North as Quirino and Aurora Province to as deep South as Tawi-Tawi and Jolo.
Nearly a fifth of the program’s college graduates have completed their courses with honors with two graduating summa cum laude, eight magna cum laude and 94 cum laude.
More are expected to join the program’s honor rolls as the scholars graduating this year have posted an average grade of 1.84.
The success of the program has generated support from other companies and foundations, outside of the UCPB and the CIIF groups, including San Miguel Foundation, which is sponsoring 10 technical-vocational scholars in Mindanao; the Philippine Development Alternative Foundation, 20 college scholars in the Bicol Region and in the Visayas; Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Co., 34 college scholars in Manila and in the Visayas; and Save Coconut Foundation and St. Paul University Quezon City, 36 college scholars in Manila.