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All systems work for approximately 25 million students when schools finally open on Monday, October 5, with new learning modules that the Department of Education (DepEd) has created to deal with the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic (Covid -19).
Undersecretary of Education for Legislative Affairs Tonisito Umali told Laging Handa Public Briefing that 22.5 million have been enrolled in public schools as of Friday, which is close to the 22.573 million enrolled in the 2019-2020 school year. Meanwhile, 2.16 million students are enrolled in private schools, 50 percent less than 4.3 million last year.
Umali said he expected the number of public schools to increase with late enrollments and the transfer of 400,000 to 450,000 students from private schools due to the pandemic, which had forced school authorities to move the opening of classes from June.
Umali said that one of the challenges they faced was distributing the learning modules to students, especially in remote areas.
As of September, DepEd had distributed 500 million self-study modules, produced 3,120 television episodes and written 3,445 radio scripts to be broadcast on 207 television channels and 162 radio stations across the country, Umali said.
He added that this was the result of the “partnership” forged by school authorities with local and regional radio and television stations to supplement the online or self-study modules.
DepEd has informed division superintendents and regional directors of television episode time slots by subject and grade level, which can also be accessed from the DepEd website, Umali said.
He also urged parents to refer to their children’s weekly learning plan and help in their activity sheets and practice exercises or log on to the DepEd Commons website for online resources.
Another challenge, Umali said, is that students may have a hard time adjusting to new learning modalities, but assured that DepEd was prepared in case problems arose.
Parents, according to Umali, should call teachers once their children experience learning difficulties at home.
Donation
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian donated 3.5 million masks and 600,000 face shields to schools in the National Capital Region (NCR), Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal and Laguna.
At least 155,536 public school teachers, school principals and school assistants, public school district supervisors, school division superintendents and assistant school division superintendents will benefit, said the chairman of the committee on basic education, culture and the arts.
The Valenzuela School of Mathematics and Sciences was the first recipient of the donation, which Gatchalian personally supervised.
DepEd has said regional offices and school division offices should have established health and safety protocols before the school opens on October 5 to distribute modules without endangering teachers and students.
Education officials said that DepEd’s 2020 budget does not cover Covid-19 medication, treatment or hospitalization for teachers and non-teaching staff.
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