LATE enrollees will still be accepted for the incoming school year 2020 to 2021, the Department of Education-Davao Region (DepEd-Davao) announced.
DepEd-Davao Spokesperson Jenielito Atillo said that enrolments for late enrollees are still ongoing until September 1, as ordered by Education Secretary Leonor Briones.
"Nagapadayon gihapon siya ron (it is still ongoing) because Secretary Briones allowed the acceptance of late enrollees," Atillo said.
As of July 17, DepEd-Davao recorded a total of 1,046,631 public school enrollees from kindergarten to senior high school (SHS) for the school year (SY) 2020 to 2021. This is lower than the 1,161,883 enrollees from SY 2019 to 2020.
Enrollees for private school also dropped to 139,734 enrollees for SY 2020 to 2021, compared to the 196,640 from SY 2019 to 2020.
Davao City has recorded the most number of enrollees for public and private schools with 354,590, followed by Davao de Oro with 176,227, Davao del Norte with 115,530, Davao del Sur with 97,069, Davao Oriental with 96,884, Tagum City with 66,779, Davao Occidental with 54,998, Panabo City with 49,500, Digos City with 42,585, Mati City with 35,055, and Island Garden City of Samal 27,231.
The last day of enrolment was on July 15, which was extended from the initial June 30 deadline by the DepEd central office due to the lower turn out of enrollees.
This year, a physical classroom setup will not be allowed due to the current coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
With this, DepEd has prepared different learning modalities to cater to all students who will be at their homes when the academic classes open on August 24.
These include online, modular and TV- and radio-based learning.
Atillo said several adjustments had been made with the enrollment unlike in the previous years which require the physical presence of the parent or the enrollee.
Parents who still wish to enroll their children in the incoming school year can do it in many ways: through online, phone line, text message and through designated drop boxes placed in front of the schools.
Atillo also said teachers have been busy facilitating the enrollment.
In order to attract more enrollees, he said teachers will be communicating with their previous students, through their master list, to check if they have already enrolled for the next academic year.
He added DepEd also conducted a survey asking the parents what kind of learning modality they would like to avail but he said it would still depend on the area of what learning modality is available.
Students who wish to avail of the online learning modality would have to be determined of its eligibility, depending on the internet connectivity of their area.
"At the end of the day, ang mag-decide gihapon ana is ang eskwelahan through the principal ug sa ilang magtutudlo kung unsa ba gyud ang appropriate for them (it is the school through the principal and teachers who will decide on what learning modality will be appropriate for them)," Atillo said.
Recently, he said DepEd-Davao is now ready for the resumption of classes despite some issues and concerns in its implementation.
Atillo said that based on their conducted dry run in some public schools in the region, they were able to have a clear grasp on the expected set up in the opening of the school year 2020 to 2021.
But he said existing challenges in the internet connectivity and the lack of gadgets for both teachers and students remain to be the problem with the newly implemented learning modalities.