DepEd in East Visayas all set for school opening on June 4

By Erlinda Olivia P. Tiu

Sunday 3rd of June 2012

PALO, Leyte, June 3 (PIA) -- The Department of Education (DepEd) has assured that the region is all set to welcome 900,000 to 1 million students for the school opening on Monday, June 4.

DepEd assistant regional director Alberto Escobarte assured 100 percent readiness of all schools from the 10 DepEd divisions in the Eastern Visayas Region, in a phone patch with the Philippine Information Agency.

Escobarte said the DepEd regional office is expecting about 700,000 pupils who will troop to the different elementary schools and more than 200,000 students who will troop to the different secondary schools all over the region on June 4.

In order to ensure smooth opening of classes, DepEd has come up with the Oplan Balik Eskwela Information and Action Center (IAC) to ensure a smooth and organized school opening in public schools on June 4. It is program which started on May 28 up to June 8.

The DepEd’s OBE-IAC will provide students and their parents all over the region hotline numbers, landlines and text lines, where they can make inquiries and report complaints and concerns.

The OBE-IAC will operate until June 8, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, including Saturdays and Sundays, at the DepEd Regional Office.

The OBE-IAC will also serve as information and complaints processing and routing mechanism for the opening of classes.

“Oplan Balik Eskwela is one of the flagship projects of DepEd. We have tapped all our field offices to actively participate in this project. We have to ensure that all is set for the school opening on June 4,” Escobarte said, underscoring that this is according to the directive of DepEd secretary Armin Luistro.

Escobarte added that based on the order of Secretary Luistro, all regional directors and schools division superintendents were also “empowered” to form their own Local Information and Action Center (LIAC) not only to oversee local concerns, which will be coordinated to the central office, but also to encourage parents and communities to send their children to school.

Command centers have set up hotlines to receive calls, text and fax messages, and e-mails on complaints, requests and suggestions from parents, students and other concerned citizens. Help desks were also set up to accommodate walk-in concerns.

Meanwhile, the partner agencies in the opening of classes have already set up their strategies to ensure safe and orderly opening of classes in the region, the DepEd-8 official said.

Escobarte said that the usual concerns during opening of classes are the lack of classrooms and school desks, in which the DepEd will do every remedy possible to solve such lack.

The reported lack of classrooms for kindergarten classes will be remedied by using ancillary facilities the concerned schools have.

“We can use the library, the guidance office or even the principal’s office, if necessary, just to have a classroom for the kindergarten pupils,” Escobarte said.

The construction of classrooms for the kindergarten students has been in the pipeline, Escobarte said. He disclosed that 30 classrooms for the kindergarten pupils are currently being constructed but these will be ready in August.

In the meantime, temporary classrooms will be made available by the various schools, the DepEd official said. (EOT/PIA8)