The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) recently announced that there have been 3,139 grantees of the Expanded Students Grants-in-Aid Program for Poverty Alleviation (ESGP-PA) who will graduate from college ending the school year 2015-2016. Ninety of these students have graduated with academic honors and awards.
The graduates are from the households under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, a human development program that invests in the health and education of children 0 – 18 years old from eligible poor households.
ESGP-PA helps in increasing the number of graduates in higher education among poor households and to get these graduates employed in high-value added occupations.
DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman said that the government’s investment in the education of students from poor households pays the best interest in the future. A higher education gives the graduates a better start in the world of work.
“The government is gradually reaping the fruits of the investment it made four years ago. Finishing a college degree gives these youth a fighting chance of improving their lives,” Sec. Soliman said.
As part of the national government’s effort of addressing problems of unemployment and alleviating poverty, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) launched SGP-PA in 2012 in partnership with DSWD, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and Philippine State Universities and Colleges (PASUC). In 2014, the program expanded its target hence the name ESGP-PA.
Under the program, a student-grantee receives a maximum of P60,000 per school year to cover tuition fees, school supplies, food, clothing, lodging and other school related expenses.
ESGP-PA grantees can choose among the identified priority degree programs of CHED. These include courses related to information technology (IT), agriculture, education, science and math, engineering, and health sciences.
Sec. Soliman shared that ESGP-PA helps in increasing the number of graduates in higher education among poor households who will have high-value added occupations in the future.
“This is just the beginning. Every year, there will be graduating students under ESGP-PA. In the succeeding years, we are confident that more families will have better lives and later on move out of poverty. It is still a long way before we live in a society free from poverty but what is important is that the government is making concrete action to achieve this,” Sec. Soliman said.
For academic year 2014-2015, there are 36,850 ESGP-PA grantees who enrolled in different state universities and colleges nationwide.