Cagayan de Oro City mayor Oscar Moreno ((standing, 6th from right) and other officials of the winning LGUs with Vice President Leni Robredo (5th from left), Smart Community Partnerships Head Darwin Flores (third from left), and other Synergeia partners. (PR)
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Thirty-four cities and municipalities from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao were recognized for their outstanding efforts in improving the quality of basic education in their communities.

The recipients of Seal of Good Education Governance also acquired incentives from PLDT, Smart.

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Seventeen of them including Cagayan de Oro City conferred the Seal of Good Education Governance, while the rest received the Jesse Robredo Award in Education Governance, named after the late interior secretary and longtime mayor of Naga City.

All the 34 local government units (LGUs) met the Synergeia Foundation’s criteria for good education governance. To qualify, they must have reinvented their local school boards and organized functional school governing councils. The cities and municipalities must have also reduced the number of noneaders and frustrated readers in their locality by at least 20 percent.

Moreover, their cohort survival rate (the percentage of first graders who went on to sixth grade) must be higher than the national average of 80% or must have increased by at least two percentage points. The LGUs must have devoted an increasing amount of their budget to education.

Synergeia – a coalition of individuals and organizations working closely with LGUs – started giving the Seal of Good Education Governance last year to promote transparency, accountability, and excellence in the delivery of basic education by local governments. It received 350 LGU nominations this year, which is higher than last year’s 250 submissions.

This year’s results were deliberated upon by Synergeia trustees and representatives from PLDT, Smart Communications, and SGV Foundation.

As an incentive to the Seal holders, PLDT and Smart will provide technology packages suited to the LGUs’ respective circumstances and needs.

All recipients of the Seal of Good Education Governance will get smartphones and a cash prize from PLDT and Smart. On top of these, thousands of individuals from each of the 17 Seal recipients who will sign up for KasamaKA will get a free three-month micro-insurance coverage from FINTQ, the financial technology arm of PLDT-Smart digital unit Voyager Innovations. KasamaKA is a community-based, self-help, income-generating, and inclusive ecosystem-building movement.

“We at PLDT and Smart hope that these technology tools would help the country’s outstanding LGUs deliver quality education to their constituents. We recognize that tech solutions to challenges in education work only when major stakeholders pursue innovative learning programs,” said PLDT and Smart Public Affairs Head Ramon R. Isberto.  (PR)

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