DepEd sees smooth opening of classes
THE Department of Education is confident that the opening of classes on Monday, June 4, will be smooth and orderly.
“We’re very prepared. We started with the early registration as early as last week of January. This was followed by service training by our teachers, followed by Brigada Eskwela, and then culminating with the Oplan Balik Eskwela,” Undersecretary Jesus Mateo told The Manila Times.
“I am very confident that the opening of classes for this school year will run smoothly and orderly. On top of the Brigada Eskwela, we had a dry run in the schools in Metro Manila during last day of Brigada Eskwela to prepare our students on where their classroom is what room number, what floor if [the classrooms are in]a multi-story [building]and who are their teachers,” the DepEd official added.
In the National Capital Region, about 5,000 policemen will be deployed for the class opening, NCR Police Office Director Guillermo Eleazar said on Sunday.
Eleazar added that most of the policemen will be deployed to Manila and Quezon City because the two cities have the highest number of students who will enter their first day of classes.
“They are the ones directly deployed to police assistance desks, but we also have some of them conducting patrols or are on-standby in their respective stations,” he said.
No shortage
Mateo noted that there is no shortage of teachers in the public schools.
“There is no shortage [of teachers]. We will hire an additional 75,000 teachers this year,” he said, adding that they will be hiring more teachers depending on additional requirements.
The ideal teacher to pupil ratio, on a national average, for elementary schools is 1:30 while it is 1:40 for high schools.
“But there are some schools that don’t have the 1:30 teacher ratio, and you can find it in urban areas like Metro Manila,” Mateo said.
The DepEd said that about 27 million elementary and high school students were expected to show up for the June 4 school opening.
“We expect more or less 27.7 million public and private kindergarten, elementary and junior and senior high school students trooping this June 4 to our public schools and first week of August to our private schools,” DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali said in an earlier interview.
DepEd data shows that 22 million students are enrolled in public schools, and four million in private schools.
In public schools, 2.2 million are kindergarten pupils, 12.2 million are elementary students, 6.4 million are junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) students and 1.3 million are senior high school (Grades 11 and 12) students.
In private schools, 243,818 are in kindergarten, 1.2 million in elementary, 1.3 million in junior high school and 1.2 million in senior high school.
The DepEd said 149,614 junior and senior high school students taking up the technical and vocational (tech-voc) track will go to state universities and colleges and local universities and colleges, while 641,584 are enrolled in the Alternative Learning System or ALS.
It added that lack of classrooms, learning materials, electricity and water are among the problems faced by the agency every school year.
WITH REPORTS FROM DEMPSEY REYES AND FRANCIS EARL A. CUETO
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