During its session in the cafeteria of Tinian Elementary School, the Senate unanimously adopted Senate Resolution 17-54 which aims “to encourage and support” the founding of the Philippine school’s open university within NMC.
Senate President Paul A. Manglona, Ind.-Rota and author of the resolution, said an open university will help the CNMI address its lack of nurses and other healthcare professionals.
Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao, Ind.-Rota, asked if the proposed partnership can “bring in revenue” for CNMI.
Manglona said it benefits the commonwealth to allow NMC to produce healthcare professionals for the Commonwealth Health Center.
The University of the Philippines in Manila, the resolution stated, has developed a program known as a “ladderized program for midwifery, nursing and medicine,” which trains students from deprived socio-economic backgrounds to be healthcare providers in two year.
The program also offers degrees in midwifery, in nursing and medicine.
These programs, the resolution stated, have proven successful and are being implemented in other U.S. universities including the University of New Mexico in Albuquergue, New Mexico.
Manglona said students who receive degrees in healthcare in the commonwealth through this partnership “will have grown up in the CNMI, study on our islands, and be familiar with our culture, and in exchange for the opportunity to become a healthcare professional will enter a ‘social contract’ in which they will pledge to return to their home communities on Tinian, Rota and Saipan.”
The Philippines’ premier institution of higher learning, U.P. was founded in 1908 when the Asian nation was still a U.S. colony.
