Late enrollment remains a ‘problem’

PEACEFUL OPENING. The Department of Education in Eastern Visayas declared that the Monday, July 29, opening of classes across the region was smooth and peaceful. Photo shows cops present inside an elementary school in Tunga, Leyte. (TUNGA MP)

TACLOBAN CITY– The opening of classes on Monday, July 29, in Eastern Visayas was declared as generally peaceful by the Department of Education (DepEd) as it reported that over 828,000 students have so far been enrolled for this school year.

At the Tacloban City Central School (TCCS), its principal Imelda Gayas, said that she could not yet provide as to the number of enrollment as many parents continue to enroll their children on Monday, the first day of classes for the 2024-2025 school year.

“All classrooms were ready as well we conducted day 1 lesson (but) some are still coming for enrollment,” she said.

So far, TCCS has 606 enrollees from Kindergarten up to Grade 6. Last school year, the school had 783 students.

Jazmin Calzita, the regional information officer of the DepEd, said that while ‘late enrollment’ has become a perennial during the first day of classes, they described as generally peaceful the opening of classes.

As of Monday, about 828,720 students from Kindergarten up to senior high have been enrolled across the region, she said.

Last school year, there were more than 1.23 million students who were enrolled in the region.

“Our general assessment was that we have a smooth first day of opening of classes in the region but parents are not following the enrollment schedule,” Calzita said.

Enrollment in public schools was originally scheduled from July 3 to 26.

Calzita also said that based on their monitoring, there were still schools that need for more cleaning of their surroundings.

“But a majority of the schools that we visited were cleaned up,” she said.

Calzita also said that they also received some complaints from teachers of fully loaded of classes and still required to attend training on weekends.

“There are still schools that are overpopulated, hence lack of classrooms remains a problem,” she said.

Calzita said that the problem of overpopulation of schools was a result of school preference by the parents.

JOEY A. GABIETA