Young Maguindanaons complete vocational courses

COTABATO CITY - More than thousand out-of-school Maguindanaon youth on Tuesday completed technical and vocational courses through the joint efforts of Australia and the Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The graduates are from eight towns in Maguindanao, a component province of ARMM and a known bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The beneficiaries of the livelihood schooling assistance were trained on computer hardware and basic electronics servicing, motorcycle maintenance, mobile phone repair, food processing, and hairstyling by the Notre Dame University (NDU) under a technical vocational education and training (TVET) program.

The Australian government has been helping push the educational advancement of the youth sector in the autonomous region through the Basic Education Assistance for Muslim Mindanao (BEAM-ARMM) program, which is being implemented by the regional education department.

A representative of the Australian government, Kevin Corbin, who is helping oversee the implementation of BEAM-ARMM, said the vocational and technical livelihood intervention for Maguindanao’s out-of-school youth (OSY) will help address the problem of unemployment in the province.

Lawyer Jamar Kulayan, regional secretary of DepEd-ARMM, said the special program for OSY is meant to alleviate beneficiaries from poverty, and to hasten the restoration of normalcy in conflict-stricken areas in Maguindanao.

Kulayan said recent studies revealed that only three out of 10 grade school pupils in the autonomous region stand to finish a college course due to various reasons, among them the grinding poverty besetting their families.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu said he is delighted with the vocational and technical education the DepEd-ARMM and the Australian government had extended to 1,020 OSY in the province, through the TVET program of Central Mindanao’s largest catholic school, the NDU, which is owned by the Oblate congregation.

Mangudadatu said his administration is firm in its conviction that lasting peace in the province can easily be achieved if children in Maguindanao’s “tri-people” community, which groups together the Muslims, Christians, and indigenous lumads, can have unlimited access to education.

The office of Mangudadatu is presently funding the schooling of 4,000 college scholars through its Maguindanao Program for Educational Assistance and Community Empowerment, more known as the “MagPEACE” project.