CEBU, Philippines - The number of dropouts in the first grade for schoolyear 2008-2009 went down after Cebu City offered free kindergarten classes to young children in various public schools here.
According to city consultant on education Joy Augustus Young, statistics showed that 486 Grade-I pupils quit in SY 2002-2003 while 2,100 had failing marks. But recently, it was noted that the number of dropouts slowly decreased to 260 for SY 2008-2009 and that pupils with failing marks also went down to 1,671.
Young has attributed the accomplishment to the city’s successful implementation of the free daycare and kinder classes. Enrollees for the first grade were also required to take the School Readiness Assessment Test.
“Those children who failed to pass the school readiness assessment test were required to take the summer kinder classes,” Young said yesterday.
It was learned that almost all of those dropouts or those who failed to pass Grade-I were pupils without kinder experience or any early childhood education.
“Based on experience, pupils without early childhood education face the difficulty of catching up with their lessons and adjusting in a new environment,” Young said.
But with the city’s free kinder and daycare classes, it was further noticed that children no longer cried on the first day of school and no longer asked their parents to stay with them inside the classroom. — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)