THE Department of Education (DepEd) Davao is all set to welcome the opening of the new school year (SY) 2019-2020 on June 3 and is projecting 1,429,719 enrollees in both public and private elementary and secondary schools across the region.
DepEd spokesperson Jenielito Atillo said in a press briefing Wednesday, May 29, at the Royal Mandaya Hotel that they have seen no problem in terms of the school facilities and teachers.
Based on their data, for kindergarten, they have a projection of 110,062 pupils; Grades 1 to 6 with 618,613; Junior High School (Grade 7 to 10) with 397,378 students; Senior High School (Grades 11 and 12) with 107,940 for a total of 1,233,797 for public schools.
For private schools, Kindergarten has 13,262 pupils, Grades 1 to 6 with 52,737, Junior High School with 65,493 learners, and Senior High School with 64,430. This brings a total of 195,922 students.
In last year's data, they only recorded 1,155,015 public school students and with their projection of 1,233,797.
"Brigada Eskwela has helped us a lot, as usual, we have readied the schools, all our public schools in the region. Minor and even major
repairs have been done and it is ongoing even up to this very moment and physically, we are already ready," Atillo said.
He added that nationwide, DepEd announced that around 10,000 items for teachers will be opened but he is just not sure though how many of this number will be allotted to DepEd Davao.
"With respect to teachers, we don't have much problem because we still have a lot of buffer considering that we have this so-called natural vacancy, recruitment is ongoing, all throughout the year. Even if without these new items, we can really operate with the natural vacancies that we have," he said.
"Natural vacancies" means items that are created because of resignations, retirement, or whatever reasons that a particular teacher has decided to vacate his or her post.