Despite being the epicenter of COVID-19 cases in the country, the Department of Education (DepEd) - National Capital Region (NCR) on Friday, Oct. 2, expressed readiness for the formal opening of School Year (SY) 2020-2021 on Oct. 5.

“More than the readiness, the focus right now is to really ensure the formal opening of classes on Oct. 5,” said DepEd Regional Director Malcolm Garma during the NCR virtual kick-off for school opening.

This week, DepEd NCR officials led by Garma conducted random community visits to personally assess readiness of parents and students as the schools implement distance/blended learning modality.

As of Oct. 2, Garma said that there are 2,610,701 enrollees in Metro Manila schools. Of this number, 2,169,052 are in public schools while 396,275 in private schools. There are also 22,565 enrollees in Alternative Learning System (ALS); 12,387 non-graded Special Education (SPED) learners; and 10,422 in State Universities and Colleges(SUCs)/Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs) - Basic Education.

Garma explained that DepEd- NCR has a total of 16 divisions including Caloocan, Las Pinas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Manila, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Paranaque, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon City, San Juan, Taguig-Pateros, and Valenzuela.

All of the divisions, Garma said, have over 100 percent enrollment rate compared to last year. For SY 2020-2021, Quezon City has the highest number of enrollees with 436,416, followed by Caloocan with 290,417 and Manila with 284,802.

Meanwhile, Garma noted that all 16 divisions have printed self learning modules (SLMs). Three divisions have already achieved 100 percent distribution rate of SLMs.

Garma also noted that training was also provided to all school divisions supervisors on the instructional supervision for distance learning. Likewise, 69,792 or 99.19 percent of teachers were also given upskilling for the new learning modalities under blended learning.

A total of 1.9 million parents, or 90.21 percent, were also given orientation on their roles and responsibilities to ensure that their children will be successful in the learning modalities that they have chosen.

Garma, however noted, that there are still issues and problems that they have seen during their community visits. “We learned that there are still students who have yet to receive modules and many parents and learners still do not fully understand the learning modalities,” he added.

Given this, Garma said that the DepEd NCR will continue to monitor school opening progress through community visits. “Unlike in the previous years wherein we focus on schools, our monitoring will now focus on the learners - we want to see them and their parents while they are at home,” he explained.

Garma said the DepEd NCR will also adjust its programs to address existing and emerging issues or problems related to the school opening. “We would like to assure everyone that we are trying our best so we can improve our system and processes,” he ended.