DepEd to continue pre-school program

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus ordered regional directors nationwide to continue to implement the pre-school service contracting program to achieve their goal of achieving universal participation and elimination of drop out and repetition in the first three grades of schooling.

Lapus in an order said that additional classes should be organized in public schools in disadvantaged areas to accommodate more five- year-olds who are least likely to enter school.

For schools who have already organized preschool classes, Lapus said that they should continue organizing classes through the service scheme especially in schools where there were previously organized classes.

The pre-school service contracting system is a delivery system that provides education to incoming grade one pupils who cannot afford to enroll in any regular preschool and who were not accommodated in any kind of preschool services.

The program engages the services of the private schools and the non-government organizations and institutions in preparing the five year olds ready to learn and achieve the desired competencies in Grade one through contracting scheme.

The percentage of school repeaters in the city is lesser compared to the cities Mandaue and Talisay as Mandaue has a higher rate of school repeaters with 8.08 in the elementary level and Talisay City with 14.02 in the secondary level.

DepEd Regional Director Carolino Mordeno said that the higher rate of repeaters could be brought about by some factors like unemployment and the increase of standards in the city.

"Usahay ang mga ginikanan walay klarong trabaho unya makaundang ang bata mao na nga mo-repeat nasad sila. Or it can be that gi-increase ang standards sa city to its students in their aim," he added.

Mordeno said they are giving remedial classes to these students so they can catch up with the others.

Earlier, data from the regional DepEd office showed a higher rate of school leavers in the province compared to Cebu City last school year.

According to the DepEd data, 11.64 percent of students left school in the elementary level in Cebu province while the city had a rate of 7.96 percent.

Most of the school leavers in the province and city are male.

In the secondary level, there are still more school leavers in the province with at least 31.84 percent compared to Cebu City's 18.30 percent. The data likewise showed a bigger portion of leavers who are males compared to female.

Mordeno said the figures of the province are higher as they have a bigger population of students. - Jasmin R. Uy