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COTABATO CITY (SDN) — The government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) continued its construction of school buildings, one of the initiatives led by the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE).
Headed by Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal, the MBHTE is one of the 15 primary ministries of the Bangsamoro region, which abolished and replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 2019.
Since he assumed the leadership of the education ministry, Iqbal has been implementing various reforms in the region, including the hiring of thousands of teaching and non-teaching personnel, promotion of deserving personnel, repair of dilapidated school buildings, distribution of IT equipment, MBHTE-designed armchairs, Teachers’ Kits, Learners’ Kits, trainings and re-trainings of personnel, and other school supplies.
On October 19, the MBHTE held another groundbreaking ceremony for construction of a two-storey building with four classrooms at the Ummat National High School in Simunul, Tawi-Tawi. Funded with Php12,843.284.64, this project will be subsidized under General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro (GAAB) 2024.
This new building is part of the ongoing efforts of the MBHTE to provide access to quality education, ensuring that no Bangsamoro learner will be left behind.
In a related development, a turnover ceremony was held last October 10 after the completion of the one-storey with two-classroom school building at Timuay Tata-a Muba Elementary School at Barangay Looy, South Upi, Maguindanao del Sur, at a cost of Php4,570,972.83. It was funded under Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Social Development Fund (SDF) Cluster III.
This new facility is expected to provide access to quality education by providing an improved learning environment in the region.
Meanwhile, the MBHTE announced that the Provision of Technical Assistance to Alternative Learning System (ALS) Teachers in Schools Division of Tawi-Tawi as per Regional Memorandum No. 687, series of 2024, which was originally scheduled for October 14-19, 2024, has been postponed until further notice.
The Bangsamoro region, established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), is made up of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the Special Geographic Area’s (SGA) 63 barangays or villages that voted “Yes” in a plebiscite in February 2019 to be under the BARMM jurisdiction. With the recent plebiscite at SGA, the BARMM now has eight new municipalities as residents voted “Yes”.
According to the Philippine Atlas BARMM has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities (plus eight newly established under the SGA: Basilan, 11 municipalities; Lanao del Sur, 39; undivided Maguindanao, 36; Sulu, 19; and Tawi-Tawi, 11. Its component cities are Cotabato (the regional center and capital) in Maguindanao; Lamitan in Basilan; and Marawi in Lanao del Sur. (✓)