The social pressure of Pandemic COVID 19 pose a great challenge to DepEd officials for the School Year 2020-2021. Their prime concerns are health safety and wellbeing of the learners, teachers and non-teaching personnel without compromising education of the Filipinos even in this trying times.
Though the local government authorities had lifted up Enhance Community Quarantine into General Community Quarantine, the fact is COVID 19 curve is still raising causing parents, learners, and DepEd employees in state of reservation for their own safety. Their worries about the present situation is critical perhaps greater than that of the security measures plotted not to compromise education amidst the current crisis.
Regardless of one’s feelings and emotion brought about by the pressing situation, DepEd has laid down a concrete plan for the safety of all. This plan includes the pre-opening of classes until the post ending of classes. But the crucial of all is the pre-opening of classes activities like in the conduct of enrollment for SY 2020-2021 knowing the prevalence of COVID 19 victims in the nearby localities. But according to them, all of these should not hold back the flight of education hence Deped have this Learning Continuity Plan (LCP) for this school year.
DepEd has prepared the so called Modified Enrollment Process (MEP) to smartly get around the enrollment activities amidst COVID 19. The conduct would be in the Digital and/or in the physical platforms. Digital platform is a platform that utilizes social media technology and equipment to conduct remote enrolment process. Physical platform is a platform that utilizes facilities and tools duly set-up in strategic locations by the Enrollment Focal Persons (EFP) with the assistance of the school’s stake holder in the conduct of enrollment. These two platforms do not come as the school head’s option but may be a combination depending on the actual situation and setting of the school relative to the location map of the learners.
There are two focus group of learner’s subject for the modified enrollment procedure. These are the Incoming learners (IL) and Existing learners (EL). The Incoming learners includes the Grade 7 learners, the transferees and the Balik-aral learners who do not have any record yet in the school. This group of learners is referred to as un-enrolled and needs to accomplish the enrollment form and the survey form attached in DO. #7 S. 2020. They will be enrolled virtually through the available social media such as online enrollment, google forms, face book page, email, tele-enrollment, SMS messaging and telephone calls. In the event that virtual option is not possible due to resources limitation, physical enrollment would be the last option under the guidance and facilitation of the Enrollment Focal Person (EFP) as assigned by the school head. In contrary, Existing learners are those who were in the school for the previous school year with no academic issues and promoted to the next higher level. This group of learners is referred to as pre-enrolled learners which need to accomplish only the enrollment survey form virtually under the facilitation and management of the previous teacher advisers. The learners submission of the student survey forms will change their pre-enrolled status into officially enrolled status. Sourcing out of data in the survey form shall be done only in a remote way via social media platform or simple saying online procedure.
Part of the very important preparation prior to the enrolment period is the proper assignment of teachers according to the task they are to do during the enrolment period. A teacher could be Teacher led enrolment or an Enrolment Hotline Focal Person. Teacher- led were the previous adviser of the previous student who were promoted to the next higher level for they already have their records. These teachers are responsible to enroll their students in the LIS system and to contact them to source out information for their survey forms via social media. The Enrolment Hotline Focal Person are the non advisory teachers assign to entertain queries and facilitate the Grade 7, transferee, and Balik aral enrollment.
There are three stages of the so called modified enrollment process. These are the pre-data collection stage, data collection stage and data retrieval stage. Pre data Collection is a stage in which the school head should designate the Teacher-led and the Enrolment Focal Person (EFP). Teacher led are the teacher advisers of the previous learners responsible for the enrolment of their students and source out information needed in the survey. This stage also includes the proper dissemination of the school enrollment procedure via social media and includes as will the participation of the stakeholders. It is also in this stage where enrollment advocacy mechanism should be highlighted. This includes the posting of Tarpaulins in a strategic location, Posting of enrollment information using the social media, flyers distribution and tapping of the school PTA official. The second is the data collection stage which includes the collection of data among teacher adviser for the previous year, through the Initiative of parents/ guardians, and through the established of digital and physical platforms. The third and the last stage is the Data collection stage which focuses on the analysis and evaluation of the data gathered.
In totality, the modified enrollment process of deped does not just cater continuous education in the way it use to be sometimes in the past but partially diverge into a research base adjustment founded on overwhelming evidences. This greatly depends on the accuracy of data collection implementation process to return almost exact data to the DepEd central office as bases for decision making relative to the fast changing situation that we are in. All has a great role to play during the three stage of this modified enrolment process.
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