BALANGA CITY — Department of Education (DepEd) Bataan already registered a total of 99,779 enrollees for public elementary and high schools in the 11 towns of the province for the coming school year 2020-2021.
DepEd Bataan Assistant Schools Division Superintendent Roland Fronda said the process for the entire enrollment will be done remotely, and parents are not required to physically go to the school to enroll their children.
“For this year’s enrollment, we instructed teachers to reach out with their former students via text message or email, and those who expressed willingness to enroll were automatically enrolled,” Fronda said in an interview.
Last school year, DepEd logged more than 150,000 of students for the total 244 public elementary and high schools in Bataan’s 11 towns.
During the enrollment process, parents were asked to fill-up the Learner Enrollment and Survey Form to determine their preferred alternative learning modalities as DepEd affirmed to the public that no face-to-face classes will be conducted until a vaccine against coronavirus disease becomes available.
Initial reports from the survey revealed that majority of parents preferred modular learning as their top choice for the distance learning method followed by online learning, combination of modalities, television and radio-based instructions.
Same preference was observed when respondents are grouped according to grade level as well as educational level. Modular learning is also most preferred by parents whose children are enrolled under Special Education and Alternative Learning System.
“Definitely, the printed modules we will provide will be free of charge so parents will not spend a single centavo for the learning materials as DepEd will not allow it,” he stressed.
Moreover, Fronda assured that they are ready to shift to the various distant modalities, and they are in continuous coordination with the provincial and municipal governments for necessary support during the start of classes.
“We have estimated that 70 to 80 percent of our teachers have laptops for the conduct of online classes. What we are studying today is how we can secure a stable internet connection especially for those in the far-flung areas in the province such as the towns of Bagac, Morong and Hermosa,” he said.