The Department of Education XI yesterday said it’s all set for the more than a million students in public and private schools who will begin classes on June 3.
Speaking in yesterday’s AFP-PNP press briefing held at The Royal Mandaya Hotel, DepEd XI spokesperson Jenielito Atillo said 618,613 students from grades 1 to 6 and 110,062 for kindergarten are enrolled in public schools alone.
There are 397,378 enrolled in junior high school or grade 7 to 10; while 107, 940 are enrolled in senior high school (Grades 11 and 12).
For private schools, there will be 13,262 for kindergarten; Grades 1 to 6 will have 52,737; junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) will have 65,493; senior high school (Grades 11 to 12) has 64,430 or total of 195,922.
“So we expect that with the entire school year 2019 -2020 we will be catering to 1, 129,719 students,” Atillo said.
Meanwhile, he said the Brigada Eskwela was a success. “We are now ready for the opening of classes and attendance will immediately be checked on that day,” he said.
“With respect to teachers, we don’t have much problem because recruitment is ongoing all throughout the year,” Atillo said.
He said they have confirmed 10,000 new teacher items nationwide but there’s no allocation for the region yet.
“Even if without the new items, we can operate really on the natural vacancies. These are the basis that are made through reservation and retirement and other reasons,” he added.
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen.Marcelo Morales, the director of Police Regional Office XI, said the Oplan Balik Eskwela will be activated on June 3.
“We have a strong coordination with the DepEd, through our police community relations officer, on the security concerns in schools so that the PNP can address it,” Morales said.
“And for us, we’ll conduct inspections and we’ll provide leaflets and flyers on how not to be a victim of incidents in schools like bullying, riots, and theft cases, and even snatchers,” he said.
He said they will conduct seminar for the students regarding the Juvenile Delinquency Law, and Anti-Hazing Law, and Anti-Torture Law, in coordination with the DepEd during the succeeding school days.
