Early registration starts Jan. 30 —DepEd

The Department of Education (DepEd) will start Saturday, January 30, the early registration for academic year 2016-2017 in all public elementary and secondary schools in the country.

DedEd Secretary Armin Luistro, in Department Order 5 dated January 26, said that the early registration will be conducted until February 29, 2016.

He said it is aimed at achieving “universal participation and completion of the cycle.”

Luistro called on local officials, civic organizations, and people’s organizations to support the massive advocacy campaign to locate and identify children and youth who are not currently enrolled and bring them back to school.

One of the objectives of the campaign is to ensure that five-year-old children are enrolled in kindergarten.

Under the campaign, the DepEd aims to locate, identify, and enroll out-of-school children and youth who are in remote and geographically isolated areas; are in difficult circumstances; belong to disadvantaged groups or who suffer from discrimination; have disabilities or in need of special education; and have dropped out but would like to go back to school.

Education Assistant Secretary Tonisito Umali said there is no need for the currently enrolled students to participate in the early registration campaign.

“The currently enrolled are deemed registered. What we need to know are the number of students enrolling for kindergarten, first grade, out-of-school youth who wanted to go back to school, and students with special needs,” he said in a phone interview with GMA News Online on Friday.

Barriers to access to education

The campaign will also allow education officials to understand the barriers to access to education and identify local solutions or interventions to bring children to school and ensure that they do not drop out.

“Schools are urged to come up with with various activities such as house-to-house campaigns or meetings with local and barangay officials, civic organizations and people’s organizations to help and locate children who should be in school,” said Luistro.

He said regional offices and school division offices should support the campaign.

He said that expenses related to the early registration campaign shall be charged to local funds, as appropriate and as authorized, subject to existing accounting and auditing rules and regulations. —Amita Legaspi/ALG/KG, GMA News