Balik Eskwela 2019: 567K Cebu province enrollees to report to school on Monday

Pupils from the Guadalupe Elementary School line up at the school grounds while they wait for the singing of the Philippine national anthem to formally open the school year in this June 2018 file photo./CDN Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 567,000 public elementary and high school students are expected to report to the different schools in Cebu province during the opening of classes on Monday, June 3.

Dr. Rhea Mar Angtud, Cebu province schools division superintendent, said this year’s enrollees is around two percent more than the 530, 000 enrollees recorded in the last school year.

The projected increase will come from transferees and returnees, she said.

Angtud said that Cebu enrolles comprise 25 percent of the total number of enrollees in Central Visayas.

Juliet Jeruta, regional director of the Department of Education in Central Visayas DepEd-7, said in an earlier interview that the lack in classrooms remains to be a major concern for the education department this school year, but they are trying to address the problem by looking into the backlog in classrooms construction.

Read more: DepEd-7 targets to address classroom backlogs this year

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) also made an allocation for the construction of around 1,000 additional classrooms in region this school year.

Read more: DepEd-7: ‘Last-mile’ schools’ principals to be tasked to facilitate building of classrooms

Meanwhile, Angtud urged students to make sure that they do not miss the first week of classes.

“Ready na atong mga school nga i-admit ang mga bata. Atong gi-awhag ang atong mga ginikanan nga di na man pareha kaniadto  nga pirmirong semana  manglimpyo so di pa paskwelahon ang mga bata. Karon, magsugod na gyud ang klase,” said Angtud.

(Our schools are now ready admit our students. We encourage parents to let their children go to school because classes will already start this week unlike in the past where in the first week of the school year is usually used to clean the classrooms and prepare these for the start of classes.)

Parents, pupils and teachers already cleaned their respective classrooms and fixed damaged fixtures during the Brigada Eskwela scheduled from May 20 to 25, 2019.

Read more: DepEd tells parents, community stakeholders: Join Brigada Eskwela 2019

But Angtud said that they will continue to accommodate transferees especially those coming from private schools during the first week of classes./dcb