Phil. Science High School breaks ground in Argao

A groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday signaling the start of the construction this month of the Philippine Science High School building in Argao town, and making way for the school to have its own building this year.

Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro, who is also the school's board chairman, said that during the construction of the school building, classes will be held temporarily in an unused building when the school year opens in June.

The ceremony was followed with the signing of the memorandum of agreement, among Cebu 2nd district Rep. Simeon Kintanar, the Argao municipal government, and PSHS for the construction of the buildings.

Alabastro said the PSHS-Central Visayas campus in Argao was established, as approved by the PSHS System Board of Trustees in a resolution, as an answer to the need of opportunities for quality secondary education in Central Visayas.

Only one PSHS campus is allowed for each of the 16 regions in the country, and the Argao campus will be the only one in Region 7, which will be under the direct supervision of the Department of Science and Technology.

The Cebu City Science High School, on the other hand, is a state high school for science and mathematics education for exceptionally-gifted Cebuanos but is not under DOST supervision.

The PSHS is located in a five-hectare land, which Argao town had provided and with Kintanar allocating P10-million in initial funding for the school construction.

Aside from the school buildings, PSHS will also have a 28-room dormitory where the school's pioneering set of students, and the succeeding batches, will stay.

Kintanar said the Argao campus is good news to PSHS scholars from Siquijor, Negros, Cebu and Bohol provinces because they will not enroll anymore in PSHS-Iloilo campus anymore.

He said Argao town was chosen as host of PSHS because it is more accessible to students from other provinces, and that it is the premier municipality in the second district of Cebu. - Jasmin R. Uy