The awarding of the grants which was formalized during the Signing of the Memorandum of Agreement held on 3 September at the Estosan Garden Hotel  in Cotabato City was attended by more than a hundred individuals who were School Principals,  members of SGC, Local School Boards (LSB) and Parents,  and DepEd-ARMM officials.

 Ramon C. Bobier, Acting Australian Project Director for BEAM, said at the signing ceremony that the school grant will boost and sustain efforts of school leaders and other stakeholders to continually support’ implementation of SIP. “This grant is especially drafted for ARMM where many schools are in dire need of support in terms of resources that are critical to achieving quality learning outcomes” Bobier said.

The school grant, which will be allocated in three modes covers the  11 school divisions around the five provinces in the autonomous region. The number of school grantees in each division are as follows:– Basilan (26), Lamitan (8), Sulu I (42), Sulu II (40), Tawi-Tawi (45), Marawi (13), Lanao del Sur I-A (31), Lanao del Sur II-A (42), Lanao del Sur II-B (29) and Maguindanao (61). The main criteria used in the selection of the recipient schools are: the school is actively implementing its SIP together with its stakeholders, it has organized a functional SGC and teachers are now using the Learning Guides and other instructional materials provided by BEAM.

The modalities in the school grants  are (1) Incentive-First Time, where P50,000 is apportioned to a performing school that meets that criteria and first time to receive the grant, (2) Incentive-Second Grant, where P30,000 is allotted to a performing school that has been a recipient of the DepEd National SBM Grant but is selected again for being able to meet the criteria and (3) Grant for Disadvantaged Schools, where P50,000 is allocated to remote and far-flung areas that needs financial assistance in the SIP implementation.

Bobier added, “These beneficiaries were trained prior the distribution of grants on school improvement planning. Also, they have to undergo a training on school financial management that BEAM will undertake in September and this grant will be a good experience for them to practice sound financial management.

“We are blessed to have received this grant. This noble effort of BEAM challenged us to spend this grant wisely for the future of our school children. What we thought before as impossible in implementing our respective SIPs is now coming into reality” in a message delivered by Meraim A. Kawit, OIC-School Division Superintendent of Maguindanao.

Bureau of Secondary Education Director Hamid Lajakahal in his message on behalf of DepEd-ARMM Secretary Udtog K. Kawit, reminded the participants during the signing ceremony that ever since the start of the BEAM project, the Australian Government has been committed to helping ARMM improve its basic education hence the schools who are recipient of the grant  must be able to demonstrate that such trust given to them must be sustained and translated into improved academic performance of pupils and students in ARMM.