Roxas City (16 November) — Nearly 1,500 children in Capiz are availing of the pre-school education program of the Department of Education (DepEd).

According to Education Supervisor and Capiz Division Pre-school Coordinator Belen Jocson, 1,425 children aged 5 years old and above are benefiting from DepEd’s Pre-school Service Contracting classes here.

Said contracting classes last for 6 months in a school year where a maximum of 25 pupils per class are admitted for pre-school education, Jocson said, adding that the government has allotted P300.00 per child per month for 6 months that would address the P3,000.00 monthly salary of teacher and other needed school supplies and materials.

To widen the coverage of the education program, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is confident that Congress would approve her administration’s P2-billion allocation for pre-school education for 2008.

The President noted that her administration has quadrupled its annual allocation for public pre-school education from P500 million each for 2006 and 2007 to a total of P2 billion for 2008 to attain “universal coverage” of the country’s five-year-old youths.

President Arroyo also instructed the DepEd to ensure that the pre-schoolers should at least learn the ABC, and basic arithmetic.

Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador, in her report on basic education, said pre-school education now exists in all elementary schools, with 445 pre-schools in the National Capital Region (NCR) alone.

On the other hand, Jocson said that Capiz Division has 57 pre-school service contracting classes being conducted in the 18 school districts covering the 16 towns of the province.

Aside from the DepEd’s pre-school education program, the local government units here have already institutionalized the 529 day care centers in the province to cater to the pre-school education needs of 3 to 5 years old children.