THE early registration primarily seeks to ensure that all five-year-old children are enrolled in Kinder and to locate, identify, and enroll out-of-school children and youth who belong in remote locations, difficult circumstances, disadvantaged groups or those who are discriminated, and those who have disabilities.
Through this measure, DepEd also aims to understand the barriers to access to education and identify local interventions to bring them to school and ensure that they do not drop out. To achieve these objectives, schools are urged to come up with various activities such as house-to-house campaigns, meetings with local or barangay officials and civic organizations to help and locate children who should be in schools.
The month-long initiative, which will run from January 26 to February 22, aims to ensure that all new entrants are registered for School Year 2019-2020, and to help the Department to better address and prepare for possible issues and concerns during the enrollment proper. As of February 5, a total of 352,702 from all public schools have been registered.
It also targets to locate, identify, and register out-of-school children and youth in the community who may be characterized as: living in off-grid/far-flung community, a barangay without a school, or a geographically isolated area; displaced due to natural disaster; living in an armed conflict area or area with high level of criminality/drug abuse; living with disability/ies; having chronic illness or nutritional problem/s; victim of child abuse or economic exploitation; stateless/undocumented; in conflict with the law; living on the streets; and no longer in school, and shall be encouraged and assisted to go back through the formal system, Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM), or the Alternative Learning System (ALS).
The conduct of early registration is pursuant to DepEd Order (DO) No. 3, s. 2018, otherwise known as the “Basic Education Enrollment Policy,” aimed at consolidating the various issuances on enrollment, and institutionalizing a basic education enrollment process.
Rescinding DO 6, s. 2017 or the “Multi-Year Implementing Guidelines on Early Registration,” the policy covers early registration, actual enrollment, Learner Information System (LIS) encoding, and reiteration of policies on collection of fees, among others. It shall likewise guide DepEd offices and personnel involved in enrollment in public and private schools, state and local colleges and universities offering basic education, and ALS centers.
The early registration campaign ensures the right of all school-aged learners to enroll and be equally provided with quality, accessible, relevant, and liberating basic education.
For eligibility and documentary requirements, and additional information, the public may refer to DO 3, s. 2018, DO 20, s. 2018, and DO 47, s. 2016.