Australia supports BARMM education efforts
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 23:30 PM Fri May 31, 2019
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By:
John Unson
Australian Ambassador Steven Robinson and BARMM Education Minister Muhaquer Iqbal paints a chair while in a school campus in Maguindanao
MAGUINDANAO --- The Australian government reiterated Friday its willingness to help promote quality education in the Bangsamoro region where it has on-going projects complementing regional literacy thrusts.
Ambassador Steven Robinson was in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao on Friday morning, along with Education Minister Muhaquer Iqbal of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, for a Brigada Eskwela activity.
The engagement was capped off with Robinson and Iqbal’s distribution of paints for chairs and classrooms and school supplies for pupils of the Kurintem Elementary School in Datu Odin Sinsuat.
Iqbal finished elementary education in the same school in 1960, while Datu Odin Sinsuat was Dinaig municipality yet under the Cotabato Empire Province that originally covered the now chartered provinces of Maguindanao, North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani, and the cities of Cotabato, Tacurong, Kidapawan, Koronadal, and General Santos.
“We have supported Brigada in so many schools,” Robinson said.
Australia is a major benefactor for more than a decade now of projects complementing the government’s quality education thrusts in five provinces --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi --- of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, now BARMM.
“We are partners and we shall continue helping,” Robinson said, referring to the Australian government’s current programs complementing BARMM’s effort to provide quality education to the local communities.
Robinson said he is glad seeing the MILF and the government work together now for peace and development through governance.
“We shall be supportive of this initiative,” Robinson said.
Iqbal said BARMM is thankful to foreign benefactors supporting its activities meant to hasten the southern peace process, particularly the restoration of normalcy in areas ravaged by conflicts.
The MILF’s having got to the helm of BARMM is a result of more than 20 years of peace talks between the group and Malacañang.
The chairman of the MILF’s central committee, Hadji Ahod Ebrahim, is now BARMM's appointed chief minister and concurrent head of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.
Iqbal said much has to be done still by BARMM to address so many concerns and issues besetting its constituent-communities.
Iqbal said governance for them is a challenging approach to resolving underdevelopment in areas made poor by armed conflicts.
Robinson said education is one good solution to underdevelopment.“It is a key to peace and prosperity,” Robinson said.