Education

RRPP believes that education is a prerequisite in the sustainable development of the communities and that this can best be done by investing in future generations through strengthening existing education programs and ensuring that the youths of Rapu-Rapu and the nearby coastal communities of Legaspi City and Sorsogon Province are able to make use of the educational opportunities available to them.

In 2007, RRPP partnered with Synergeia, a non-profit organization that aims to transform basic education in collaboration with local governments, parents and the private sector to organize an education summit with the purpose of making educators, parents, and local government officials aware of their role and responsibility in educating the children. Project management teams were organized and regularly met to report and monitor on the educational situation and conditions. At the end of the school year, an evaluation was conducted to assess the reading ability of grade one pupils throughout the town. A comprehensive reading program within the current curriculum is being planned to help raise the reading standards of grade one pupils. RRPP has committed to continuing this program of a community-centered education program for the municipality of Rapu-Rapu.

Moreover, since 2006, RRPP has been aggressive in encouraging students from its nearby communities to pursue high school education and beyond. Because most of its barangays in Rapu-Rapu are located in coastal areas, access to high school and college education is very limited for those living outside the Poblacion or town center and the two other large villages of Villa Hermosa and Bilbao that have high schools; the municipality boasts of a community college that offers a teaching course in elementary education located also in the Poblacion.

For the school-year 2009 and 2010, RRPP, through the CDAP scholarship program, offers full scholarship to 24 high school students and 12 college students who have exhibited high academic qualifications and come from indigent families from the barangays of Carogcog, Guadalupe, Mananao, Morocborocan, Viga, and Poblacion. Recently, RRPP signed a memorandum of agreement with the Rapu-Rapu Community College to benefit 160 college students in a miscellaneous fee for work program for deserving students from the throughout the municipality.

In Legaspi City, RRPP has maintained 10 high-achieving high school students from indigent families residing in the coastal communities facing the Albay Gulf since school year 2007-2008. All are now in their third year in the various national high schools of Legaspi City, Pag-Asa, and Oro Site.

Early this year, nine college scholars and 18 vocational scholars of RRPPs CDAP scholarship program who reside in coastal areas around the Albay Gulf across the Rapu-Rapu island in the Province of Sorsogon province graduated from the following academic institutions in Sorsogon: Aemillianum College, Sorsogon State College, Bulusan National Vocational Technical School and the Solis Institute of Technology. This school-year, RRPP is offering scholarships to 48 high school students from coastal areas in Sorsogon Province located along the Albay Gulf directly across the project site on Rapu-Rapu island.