TACLOBAN CITY-Over 1 million students from public schools across Eastern Visayas are expected to return to school on Tuesday (August 29), the first day of classes for this school term.
The number, however, is expected to increase as the enrollment is still ongoing as out of the region’s 4,484 government-run schools, only 4,354 of them have so far submitted their report to their office, Jasmin Calzita, the regional information of the Department of Education(DepEd), said on Tuesday.
She, however, said that the first day of enrollment ran smoothly.
“The opening of classes here in our region was generally peaceful and successful,” she said.
Calzita said that 550,553 students are enrolled in the Kindergarten and elementary; 313,632 in the junior high school; and 159,198 in the senior high school.
Last school year, there were more than 1.28 million who were in school in Eastern Visayas.
Calzita said that it is up to the head of the school or the principal when the school will end its enrollment.
The DepEd in the region also assured that despite of the projected increase in enrollment, the teacher-to-40-students ratio could still be attained.
In Eastern Samar, provincial schools superintendent Gorgonio Diaz expressed his gratitude to the provincial government for continuing to hire teachers.
“They are really a big help to our regular teachers which in the process, help improve the quality of education in Eastern Samar,” Diaz said.
The provincial government under Governor Ben Evardone has hired around 1,000 licensed teachers which it pays for their salaries.
They are being assigned in areas where there are needs of teachers.
In Northern Samar, the provincial government has built buildings for eight public schools across the province to help address the lack of school buildings.
For this purpose, the provincial government allocated P27.4 million sourced from its special education fund.
(JOEY A. GABIETA/LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)
