VICE President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte yesterday lamented the “quicksand” the department is facing due to calamities affecting the country’s education system, including last week’s earthquake that damaged many schools in Abra and other parts of northern Luzon.
Duterte noted the fact that the quake struck while the department was still repairing schools destroyed in previous calamities, such as typhoon Odette that wreaked havoc in parts of the Visayas and Mindanao last December.
“We haven’t completed the repair of the destruction brought by that calamity, and yet here comes another calamity,” Duterte said during the Brigada Eskwela kick-off ceremony in Imus, Cavite.
“We need more than P18 billion to get ourselves out of the quicksand of this year and last year. It does not include the things or the repairs that we have to do from 2016,” she added.
Duterte, however, assured the public the DepEd is prepared to address and weather all the challenges, adding they have laid down measures to ensure the safety of teachers, students and non-teaching staff from contracting these diseases once in-person learning resumes.
As of July 31, DepEd said 263 of the 9,903 schools affected by the Abra earthquake sustained damage that needed rehabilitation.
Of the 263 schools, the DepEd’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service said 152 are located in the Cordillera Administrative Region, 59 in the Ilocos region, 29 in Cagayan Valley, 21 in Central Luzon, and one each in Calabarzon and the National Capital Region.
Of the said schools, 451 classrooms sustained major damage while 706 registered minor damage.
Aside from the difficulties brought about by natural calamities, Duterte said the DepEd is also facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and public anxiety over the monkeypox disease.
The DepEd is looking to resume face-to-face classes in November this year after more than two years of blended learning due to the pandemic.
The Department of Health confirmed last week the country’s first case of monkeypox disease, a 31-year-old Filipino male who travelled abroad.
She said the department has the full support of President Marcos Jr. in ensuring not only the safe resumption of classes and addressing the multitude of problems but also in delivering quality basic education in the country.
Meanwhile, more than 11.6 million students have already enrolled for schoolyear 2022-2023, the DepEd said.
The DepEd said data from its Learner Information System showed that as of yesterday (August 1), 11,663,325 students have already enrolled since the enrollment period started last July 25. The enrollment will end on August 22.
Region IV-A (Calabarzon) registered the highest number of enrollees so far with 1,819,467, followed by NCR (1,531,374) and Region 3 (Central Luzon) with 1,178,813.
The DepEd said the 11.6 million enrollees are divided into 773,700 for kindergarten, 5,440,980 in the elementary level, 3,722,367 for junior high school, and 1,726,278 for senior high school.
The DepEd expects 28.6 million students to enroll from kindergarten to senior high school this year.
Last year, DepEd data showed that 28,033,530 enrolled nationwide from the kindergarten to senior high school levels, up from the previous year’s 26,826,387.
