LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Aspiring scientists and engineers from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) now have a bigger chance of pursuing their scientific and technical careers, as the local Department of Science and Technology (DOST) announced on Wednesday that 224 high school students in this upland region passed the 2018 Science and Technology qualifying exam.
Nancy Bantog, officer-in-charge of DOST-Cordillera, said the number of successful examinees in the region was higher by 19.79 percent than the 187 qualifiers in 2015, the last time the DOST conducted the examination. The test was halted for two years because of the implementation of the K-12 curriculum in the country.
The 224 test-passers were among the 8,994 who qualified in the examination nationwide, as provided for in Republic Act 7687 or the “Science and Technology Scholarship Act of 1994” and Merit Scholarship Program.
Under the law, qualifiers who avail of any of the science and technology undergraduate scholarships may pursue a four- or five-year college degree in priority science and technology fields.
The scholars will receive a tuition subsidy, a monthly stipend of PHP7,000, and a book allowance, among other benefits.
Scholars under the Merit Scholarship Program, meanwhile, will receive the same benefits, but the monthly stipend will depend on the family’s socio-economic status.
The 2018 Science and Technology scholarship examination was held on October 15, 2017, simultaneously in 216 testing centers across the country.
The scholarship program aims to encourage students to take up science and technology courses to be able to increase the number of graduates in the field to help boost the country’s economic productivity.
Last March, the provincial government of Benguet approved the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for an ordinance providing financial help to young residents of the province pursuing the Doctor of Medicine and other medical courses.
The financial aid, for which the Benguet province had initially allotted PHP2 million, would be granted to qualified students through a Study Now, Pay Later program.
The provincial ordinance was aimed at addressing the health problems of the upland province and the lack of medical practitioners in the land-locked region due to lack of financial capacity to pursue the study of medicine and other science courses. (Primo Agatep/PNA)
