Educational facilities and enrolment

Elementary School

Government Elementary School

Education is a very vital tool that is used in the contemporary world to succeed.  It is important because it is used to mitigate most of the challenges faced in life.  The knowledge that is attained through education helps open doors to a lot of opportunities for better prospects in career growth that would help decrease unemployment rate.

There are seven (7) government-owned elementary schools in the municipality that cater to the basic educational needs of school children in the nine (9) barangays.

These are the following:

1. Pangada-Cabaroan Elementary School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangays Pangada and Cabaroan;
2. Cabuloan Elementary School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangay Cabuloan;
3. Catalina Central School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Poblacion and Sinabaan barangays.
4. Cabittaogan Elementary School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangay Cabittaogan;
5. Paratong Elementary School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangays Subec and Paratong
6. Calawaan Elementary School – addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangay Tamorong
7. Bernardo P. Ragasa Elementary School – another elementary school that addresses the basic education of school children in at least Barangay Tamorong

Since Barangay Tamorong is the most populated barangay in the Municipality, there are two (2) elementary schools established in the locality, being the Calawaan Elementary School and Bernardo P. Ragasa Elementary School.

Almost all elementary schools have a 100% completion rate for the past three years.  Whereas the Bernardo P. Ragasa Elementary School achieved a completion rate of 97.36%, with 0.008% drop-out rate in 2017 and Paratong Elementary School achieved a completion rate of 99%, indicating 1% drop-out rate in year 2020.

On the hand of Alternative Learning System (ALS), it was able to achieve a completion rate of only 75% in year 2017, 43% in 2018 and 48% in year 2019.  There may have been difficulty in maintaining the ALS due to no specific or permanent ALS center to contain the students in the said program.  With this concern of the DepEd, it is targeted that the school’s division office and the LGU, through the collaborative effort of the District Supervisor, Division Supervisor and LCE to find a good location that shall serve as permanent center for ALS, and that the assigned teacher shall be further monitored and pushed to sustain the students and be able to achieve hopefully 100% completion rate onwards.

Regarding the secondary education being offered in the Municipality, there are two (2) existing institutions herein. Two (2) government-owned, which are Cabittaogan National High School that is located in Barangay Cabittaogan and Pangada-Cabaroan Integrated School located at Barangay Pangada, and a private-owned institution named as, Sta. Catalina High School, located at Barangay Poblacion.

With the awareness of the importance of education among the children, the Municipality is supportive in the endeavors of the DepEd in the promotion of “Education for All” program.  The Local School Board is functional that serves as the recommending body to the SB and LCE in the formulation of policies under the education program.

The Municipality of Sta. Catalina can ensure the availability of such school buildings for each barangay.  However, it is inevitable to face concerns of these schools needing for either improvement of classrooms and other room facilities, construction of additional school facilities that are climate change resilient to properly serve the learning and protective needs of the students, as the aspect of quality education continuously develops, improves and enhances.

The Student/Teacher Ratio in the elementary level has an overall total 20:1, for the primary level, it is 22:1 while high school level has an overall total of 12:1 all of which is above minimum planning standard of 35 student is to 1 teacher.  Also, there are a total of 78 classrooms, giving a classroom of a student ratio of 1:23 for elementary level, 1:22 for primary level, while 1:29 for high school level, having as well above the minimum planning standard of 1 classroom is to thirty 35 students; and pupil textbook ratio is 1:3.  There are however, still concerns on lack of classrooms since some having not met the standard area of 1.4 square meters for each student, hence, there are existing requests for construction of additional classrooms from the different elementary schools to address this problem.

Schools by Level, Type, Facilities and Conditions:  Year 2018-2019

 

Teacher-Student-Classroom Ratio by Level:  SY 2019-2020

 

Historical Enrolment by Level 

Employment

Sta.  Catalina is predominantly an agricultural municipality with an area of 636.37 has. or 68.027% of the total land area of the Municipality and classified as crop land, fisheries, and livesto          ck. Its economic projects gravitate toward the development of farming, inland waters fishing and agro – tourism activities.  Crop farms in the municipality are planted primarily with rice, corn and vegetables.

Primary

 2.3.1.1 Agricultural Crops

The main agricultural crops are rice, corn, onion and high value commercial vegetables like cauliflower, cabbages, sweet pepper, eggplant and other pakbet vegetable ingredients. The Municipality’s sandy loam type of soil is also suitable for planting root crops like yam beans and camote.  Irrigation or water source is easily tapped from open shallow dug about 6 meters deep wells and small water impounding projects (SWIP) by using submersible pump and engine water pump.  As per record of the Municipal Agriculture Office, there are 484.7 hectares of irrigated farmland benefitting 904 farmers of 9 barangays.

Table 9. Agricultural Irrigated per Barangay, 2015-2016

S/N	Major Crops	Area in Hectares
		Irrigated
	Urban
1	Poblacion	7.56
	Rural
1	Cabittaogan	120.08
2	Subec	33.52
3	Paratong	34.08
4	Tamorong	136.66
5	Sinabaan	63
6	Cabuloan	45.51
7	Cabaroan	30.84
8	Pangada	13.45
Source:  Municipal Agricultural Office