Previous Story
House panel wary of ‘delinquent’ scholars
|
Posted on Nov 16 2004
The House budget panel aims to keep the CNMI Scholarship Office’s funding but it wants a guarantee that such amount would be spent only for individuals who want to return and work in the CNMI.
“We support their budget request but we want the Scholarship Office to protect the funding because we’re concerned about scholars not coming back to work in the Commonwealth,” said House majority floor leader Oscar M. Babauta.
Babauta, who co-chairs the conference committee tackling the 2005 budget, said there is a rising “delinquency” rate in students not complying with regulations. For instance, he said that some teacher program scholarship grantees end up not wanting to teach.
Rep. Justo Quitugua, chair of House Education Committee, said the Scholarship Office reported 65 students who have either dropped out of the teaching program or have completed their degree but do not want to teach.
Of these, five have began paying back the government, nine were placed on deferment, including one who is on military duty, and the rest are pending resolution by the Attorney General’s Office.
Quitugua said most of these students took up education at Northern Marianas College. “But some of them don’t want to teach,” he said.
Meantime, Babauta said that the House panel would recommend keeping the CNMI Scholarship funding at $4 million.
Acting Gov. Diego T. Benavente said in a separate interview that funding for the teacher academy program is also being considered for legislative funding. Right now, he said, the program receives $12,000 a year under the Governor’s Office.
“They want to identify funding and put it in the law. That way funding is guaranteed and it will obligate the Scholarship [Office] to mandate the expenditure,” he said.
Quitugua earlier introduced a bill that aims to extend for another five years the teacher education program. The bill is waiting for approval by the Senate. The program, meantime, expired last September.
