MANILA, Philippines — The national government has earmarked an estimated P9.8 billion to fund a broad range of state scholarship programs that will benefit more than a million poor yet deserving students across the country.

Budget and Management Secretary Florencio B. Abad said the government will be investing in scholarships to help most deserving students enhance their natural aptitudes.

Abad added that the government is also giving them the means and opportunities to become highly functional members of society.

“Our society is increasingly becoming knowledge-based, so we need to nurture our people’s advantages in knowledge industries such as BPO and KPO (business and knowledge process outsourcing). Thus, strengthening our education sector is central to President Benigno S. Aquino III’s strategy for advancing socio-economic development,” Abad emphasized.

Of this amount, Abad said the Department of Education (DepEd) will use P6.28 billion for its Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) program. The increased funding, from P5.83 billion last year, will help the administration expand beneficiaries from 757,401 scholars in 2011 to one million students in 2012.

GASTPE, launched by the DepEd in 1994, subsidizes the transfer of public high school students to private schools in a move to decongest severely crowded public schools. The program focuses on graduating elementary school students, who will be amply supported by the government through high school.

“We recognize the value of GASTPE as an innovative project that can vastly improve our youth’s access to quality education; at the same time, to counter the problem of inadequate public school facilities and teachers,” he said.