272k students troop to schools in Bohol

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines  â€” School authorities and the police force in Bohol province faced an increased enrollment of 272,000 this time from only around 250,000 last school year.

Provincial Schools Division Superintendent Wilfreda Bongalos said this was due to the implementation of K-12 curriculum, now on its second year, of which kindergarten is already mandatory and two years are added to high school.

Bongalos said 21,000 pupils had entered kindergarten, 180,000 in the elementary and 71,000 students in high school for the school year 2013-2014, which runs for 201 days, starting yesterday June 3 until March 31, 2014.

Some private schools, however, opted to open their classes on June 10 yet, said Bongalos, who also confirmed that the DepEd had approved the application of some private schools for a tuition fee increase. There were a few schools in the city that maintained their old rates despite improvement of facilities, she said.

Bongalos also admitted that lack of classrooms had marred the opening of classes, but it was no longer much of a burden as in the past. She assured that, in few cases though, classes might be held in makeshift classrooms, but there would definitely be no holding of classes under a tree anymore.

Education officials in the province was optimistic that lack of classrooms will totally be solved as the provincial government continued its partnership with the Philippine Army’s Engineering Battalion on the school building construction program that gradually addressed the shortage of classrooms over the years.

Bongalos said DepEd Assistant Secretary for Programs and Projects Lorna Dino came to Bohol last week to inspect the schoolbuildings and declared that schools in the province were all ready for the opening of classes, and was even impressed on the well-managed school buildings.

The opening of classes went on smoothly yesterday, even with the added K-12 curriculum, Bongalos said, adding that there were 1,101 items for elementary school teachers this school year and all those newly hired can start  now, while new teachers for high schools are still processing their papers and might have to start later.

Preparations for the K-12 implementation included mass trainings of Grade 2 teachers, totaling 1,093 for the entire province. Teachers in high school had their training in Cebu for the Grade 8 of the K-12 curriculum, she said.

DepEd-Bohol further targeted to achieve zero drop-out this school year. Bongalos called on parents to send all their children of school age to school. Late enrollees will still be accepted and the parents will just have to give valid reasons for the failure to enroll their children on time, she said.

Meanwhile, additional cops were deployed around school areas to help prevent chaos with the influx of students and parents who would accompany their children to school.  (FREEMAN)