By Rey Anthony Chiu

It’s back to school tomorrow and what a nice way to greet the students and pupils than to extend the red welcome carpet as they troop to their respective classes. About 210,475 “pre-schoolers” and pupils are set to enter to Bohol’s 930 public kindergarten and elementary schools tomorrow, June 3 during the official opening of classes for school year 2013-2014. Also, another 72,186 students head towards the province’s 161 public secondary schools following a 3.92% increase in enrolment as projected by the Department of Education (DepED). Last year, DepEd noted 69,461 students enrolled and finishing their year levels.

In 2012 too, Bohol DepEd registered some 182,444 pupils and 24,382 kindergarten kids all over Bohol, a figure estimated to increase by 2% this year, according to Amy Cortidor of the local DepEd Planning office. Now on its second year of implementation of the Kindergarten to 12 Basic Educational System, the DepEd also announces the coming of more than the 24,382 “pre-school” tots enrolled last year. Coming in following a successful conduct of Brigada Eskwela, this year’s pupils and students immediately come to formal classes unlike the past when the opening week is often used to ready the school for the classes which “officially opens” the week after, says Desiderio Deligero, resource generation and mobilization unit head at the local division office. “There might be some small fixes needed, but most classrooms have been readied,” he reported at Kapihan sa PIA last week. When the pupils come to the classroom, DepEd expects at most, 35 of them sharing a single room.

The scenario is even more intense in the secondary schools where a classroom has to accommodate 44 students, following a 1:44 classroom to student ratio. According to the DepEd here, current teacher to student ratio is at 1:35 in the high schools and 1:33 in the elementary. Some 100 new teacher items are also slated here, disclosed Deligero last week. Following the incremental increase in enrolment, Bohol still carries on its shoulders a classroom backlog of 660 which represents the classrooms direly needed in the kindergarten and elementary. Over this, DepEd has programmed for 311 more classrooms spread the more than a thousand public schools all over Bohol this year, in the hope of cutting the backlog to half. Bohol is lucky however, because apart from the DepEd, a local program on making local education better is also engaging private companies and the government in building classrooms and schools using a separate fund source from the DepED.