UST Senior High School (SHS) students will soon find home in a new building being constructed in front of the campus on España Boulevard.
The University plans to build a 23-storey building with 110 classrooms and nine laboratories to accommodate the growing population of Grades 11 and 12 students beginning Academic Year 2019 to 2020.
The building, to be built on the lot occupied by the former Isabel Building in front of UST, will cost an estimated P2 billion. It will house some 7,000 senior high school students, UST Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P. said.
LOOK: The architectural design of the 23-storey building that is expected to house the UST Senior High School in 2019. pic.twitter.com/QuxGXDhHgE
— The Varsitarian (@varsitarianust) September 8, 2017
Dagohoy said the construction of a new building for the SHS would be in preparation for the normalization of the number of college freshmen enrollees by 2021.
“[W]e are planning that by 2019, Grades 11 and 12 should transfer to that building because we are going back to [the normal] number of enrollees by 2021. They (SHS students) won’t have space here inside the University,” Dagohoy told the Varsitarian last Sept. 8.
The UST Board of Trustees and the Provincial Council of the Dominican Province of the Philippines have approved the construction of the new building, he said.
Isabel Building, which is being demolished, was acquired by UST from Time Realty in 2015.
The structure will be a “smart” building and will have an auditorium, two library floors, a cafeteria, three parking levels, and a basketball court to be powered by solar panels, Dagohoy said.
The construction of the SHS building and the footbridge that will connect it to the UST campus will begin this year and is expected to be finished by 2019.
Plans to ‘decongest’
Students of new tertiary academic programs will occupy classrooms in the Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, O.P. Building that now houses Grade 11 students, the Rector said.
Grade 12 students are holding classes in college buildings where their tertiary programs are being offered.
“There are several programs that we have to approve for academic year 2018 to 2019. The [College of Science] is proposing three programs…The [UST-Alfredo M. Velayo College of Accountancy] is proposing three new programs, and the [Faculty of Arts and Letters] is also proposing one,” Dagohoy said.
The University also plans to transfer students from the Music and Arts and Physical Education and Sports strands to UST Angelicum, formerly Angelicum College, in Quezon City to reduce the number of SHS students in UST Manila.
The SHS population doubled to 8,614 this year from last year’s 4,960 students as it welcomed its pioneer batch of Grade 12 students.
