TACLOBAN CITY – High school students in the province of Leyte now have a choice to train on aquaculture farming with the newly launched Aquaculture Training and Production Center that was recently started in three public secondary schools in the town of Leyte.

The new skills Aquaculture Technology Course is initiated under the Leyte province’s expanding ICOT-P training courses, or Income Creating Opportunities Technology-Project, which is funded by the provincial government.

It aims to provide livelihood skills training to high school students who would not be able to proceed to college.

Leyte Gov. Carlos Jericho L. Petilla led the opening of the ICOT Aquaculture Training and Production Center that is located around 10,000 square meters of fish pond apportioned for the aquaculture students in Leyte town.
Already, 7,000 square meters of the area have been developed where the students can grow any fin-fish variety.

At least 5,000 fish fingerlings of different varieties were stocked into the newly constructed fish pond during the inauguration.

ICOT-P is a pro-poor program initiated by Petilla and implemented by the provincial government of Leyte.

It is designed to help graduating secondary level students who cannot pursue college education.

It provides technology training in modern agriculture and entrepreneurship where poor students have the opportunity for gainful occupation using the technology, even without college education.

With the success of the initial implementation in various public high schools in the province, the ICOT-P program had been extended to cover information technology (IT) where the beneficiaries are given a venue for an IT training course through the ICOT-P on IT Data Center at the Leyte ICT Park in Palo.

With another success story through the graduation of hundreds of high school students from various recipient schools, the program expanded this year to include Aquaculture Training and Production now offered by selected public high schools in Leyte town.