Around six hundred scholars attended the 2019 CHED Scholarship Programs (CSP) Orientation and Distribution of Notice of Awards (NOAs), together with the Presidents and Scholarship Coordinators from Caraga Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), at Dottie’s Place Hotel and Restaurant Function Hall, J.C. Aquino, Butuan City, on October 10, 2019.

The event aimed to discuss the updated Policies, Standards, and Guidelines to the new scholars. The latest list of priority programs was also presented and it is in line with the academic disciplines in Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Mathematics. Full-merit scholars are granted with 30,000 pesos per semester, while half-merit scholars would receive 15,000 pesos per semester. Scholars were given a responsibility of maintaining a General Weighted Average (GWA) of 2.0 or 85% for full-merit scholars and 2.5 or 80% for half-merit scholars. Although the amount of grant they will receive sounds like good news, the grades they have to maintain might be a challenge, but it was well-accepted.
Scholars’ voices were heard during the open forum. No one hesitated to raise their questions regarding the scholarship program and CHED Caraga Regional Office’s Personnel made sure that every query asked would give clarification to the scholar. Every scholar was satisfied after hearing the answers from the CHEDRO-Caraga Focal Persons.

Notice of Awards (NOAs) were distributed and reply slips from the NOA were collected from scholars with no issues on the school and course that they have applied and enrolled to. Scholars with problems such as applying to a private HEI and enrolling in State Universities and Colleges (SUC) (and vice versa), were subjected for revalidation since slots were limited only.

Upon receiving the NOAs and being oriented, scholars have officially been granted a slot. They brought with them the responsibility and the challenge to keep themselves as being privileged of the government’s initiatives through CHED-CSP.