1.3 million students in EV are enrolled for this school year
TACLOBAN CITY- More than 1.3 million students from public elementary and secondary schools across the region attended their first day of classes on Monday(June 4) as perennial woes continue to hound several schools.
With the ‘Brigada Eskwela’ conducted a week before the opening of the classes, formal classes formally started though schools were directed to continue to accept late enrollees, said Jasmin Calzeta, DepEd regional information officer.
“Teachers are expected to come with their first day of lessons this Monday,” she said.
But as in previous school years, woes continue to hound several schools of the region.
At the Campetik Elementary School in Palo, Leyte, they need at least school buildings to accommodate its growing number of enrollees, its principal said.
“We still need at least two school buildings for us to accommodate our pupils,” Jennifer Avila, school principal, said.
As of Monday, the school has more than 220 enrolled students which is expected to increase as enrollment is still ongoing.
“We expect to have an increase number of students for this school year,” Avila said. During the first day of classes, the school has accepted more than 20 students.
Last year, the school had 270 students.
At the San Fernando Central School (SFCS) this city, school principal Filitia Waniwan said that while they don’t need new school building, they are wanting of students.
According to Waniwan, she expects that the number of enrolled students would decline as families located within their school have been transferred to the northern part of the city after their houses were destroyed by the onslaught of super typhoon ‘Yolanda.’
“We expect to drop by 70 percent our number of enrollees as families have moved out to the northern resettlement areas,” she said.
As of Monday, SFCS has 1,122 attended the first day of classes.
Last school year, SFCS, which is one of the biggest elementary school in the city, had an enrollment of 1,504.
Lily Dumas, school principal of the Salvacion Elementary School, which is located in the northern part of the city, said that she has noted a slight increase of their school enrollment for this school year.
She said that as of Monday, the school has already about 490 students which is just six students shay away from last year’s school term.
“We have yet to have a final figure as enrollment is still ongoing,” Dumas said.
The city schools division has earlier reported that about 3,000 students in the seven schools in the northern part of the city, where families who totally lost their houses due to Yolanda were resettled, are expected to be enrolled.
But with the increasing number of students of the schools, 88 temporary classrooms were built to address the lack of school rooms, said Thelma Quitalig, city schools division superintendent, said in a media interview.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
