History
of USEP-Mabini
The
USEP Mabini Campus, formerly the Davao National Regional Agriculture
School, was first established as a settlement farm school by an
American teacher in 1914 to cater the educational needs of the native
populace. As a settlement farm school, the main concern was to teach
the natives in the area the fundamentals of the 3 R's and the basic
skills in crop and animal production.
As the exodus of Christian
from the Visayas and Luzon increased, there was a felt need of putting
up a higher institution of learning. In 1927 therefore, the school
was elevated to high school by virtue of ACT 3377 oftentimes known
as the Magna Carta of Vocational Education, and was named Mampising
Agricultural High School. It became a National High School in July
1941, and was called Mampising National Agricultural High School
(MNAHS).
The school started expanding its curricular offerings when in the
school year 1960-1961, it offered for the first time the One-Year
Post Secondary Technical Farm Mechanics Course, aside from the Secondary
Agriculture and Agricultural Homemaking Courses.
In the school year 1961-1962,
the school offered the two-year Technical Agriculture Course, which
was continued as a course leading to the four-year course in Bachelor
of Science in Agricultural Education, when the school was authorized
to operate as a Teacher-Training Institution in the school year
1963-1965.
In 1969, Republic Act
no. 2471 converted MNAHS into a National Regional Agricultural School
and since then it was being identified as the Davao National Regional
Agricultural School (DNRAS). As a result, the school became a teacher-training
institute, which offered a four-year course leading to the degree
of Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education, followed by a
4-year course in Technical Agriculture. Both the secondary and college
departments remained in Mampising for sometime but in 1976, the
college department was transferred to Apokon. The Mampising department
then became the site of the secondary and the post-secondary departments.
In 1979, DNRAS became
one of the components of USEP by virtue of Batas Pambansa Bilang
12. The unit begun serving as laboratory school for Agricultural
Education of the College of Agriculture at Apokon. At the same time,
it offered one year post secondary farm mechanics course, 2-year
Associate in Agriculture, 4-year degree course in Bachelor of Agricultural
Technology and Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, 2-year of General
Education and 4-year Secondary Education.
At present, the unit is
concentrating on its current programs namely: Bachelor of Science
in Agriculture (major in Horticulture, Agronomy and Animal Science);
Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education; Bachelor of Science
in Agricultural Economics; Bachelor in Secondary Education (major
in Math and T. H. E.) and Bachelor in Extension Education.
And in response to the
needs articulated by local government units, the USEP-Mabini Campus
has agreed to open USEP-Mabini External Program in Pantukan Compostela
Valley Province in 1997.
