DEPED NEWS epEd addresses temporary “first day” shortages BATASAN HILLS, QUEZON CITY – A few days after the opening of classes in public schools, Principal Dr. Diego Amid of Batasan Hills National High School (BHNHS) is showing signs of relief – the number of students in his school is stabilizing and they can finally allocate the correct number of chairs for each room. “It was chaotic last Monday,” exclaims Amid, “especially with ‘walk-in’ enrollees that we have not been able to factor in our planning.” Over 500 students, mostly transferees from the provinces, showed up for class on June 3 without pre-registering. “We encouraged our students to sign up as early as January this year so that we can allocate resources properly. But when they showed up on June 3 we cannot just turn them away.” Adding to that is a surge of 3,350 enrollees the week before, or around 28% of the school’s total population as of this week. “We might still get late enrollees next week,” Amid explains. Department of Education (DepEd) Assistant Secretary for Planning Jesus Mateo understands Amid’s dilemma and says that such incidents are common in densely populated urban areas. “The number of chairs or textbooks for a certain school is dependent on the number of students, if we don’t know exactly how many will show up on Day 1, some students might find themselves short.” Mateo says that in BHNHS’ case, they were able to “borrow” chairs from other schools in the area with excess inventory. “At the end of the day, the Principal will have a better idea how many students he has. He can then allocate materials and furniture accordingly. Kapag kulang pa ang nasa school, papadalhan natin.”
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:16:36 +0000