ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / October 9) - Officials of the Department of Education here went on a sortie in the remote hinterland schools of Iligan city on October 7 and 8 to review the teaching strategies used, including the multigrade system, and to validate their situation compared to the reports filed at the city office.
The October 7-8 visit was accompanied by a medical team from DepEd-Iligan to conduct deworming of nearly 100 pupils in Dulag Elementary School. They also had dental check up.
“Multigrade is a difficult classroom strategy because you’d see here varied grade levels sharing the same classroom and teacher at a time,” said Adelina de los Reyes, education supervisor and
member of the Task Force 4774-1 (Iligan). The task force is a multi-stakeholders network that aims to reverse the dismal situation of education in the city.
Delos Reyes said, however, that the multigrade strategy has to be used to help address the problem of accommodating the increasing number of pupils as against only a few teachers.
There are 19 classes here that are implementing multigrade instruction in accordance to DepEd national office’s instruction.
The multigrade system has been compounded also by the need for skill improvement among teachers.
“The teachers there need more training, the school lacks facilities, no library, and some are sheltered in a temporary buildings not conducive for classroom instruction,” Cherry Mae Limbaco, schools division superintendent of DepEd-Iligan, said.
For the past years, Iligan city has sustained low passing marks. Its elementary pupils got an average of the National Achievement Test (NAT) of 47 percent in 2007, 49 percent in 2008, 51.14 percent in 2009 and slid back to 49.80 percent later this year.
In Dulag Elementary School, Limbaco checked the attendance of enrollees and inspected the conditions of the classroom, reviewed the teachers’ lessons plan and noted the school’s need for facilities and repair of buildings.
Alicia Anghay, education supervisor, has encouraged young pupils “to be present always and hold on to their dreams to become professionals someday”.
Dulag is a village situated 30 kilometers from the city. The school uses a bamboo flag pole. The grade four, five and six pupils share one room and unlike other elementary schools, teachers go into multigrade classroom instruction.
May Varga, education supervisor of basic alternative learning schools (BALS), also met with the adults who were beneficiaries of adult education. BALS is a foundational but integrated education that teaches adults on reading and writing, use of herbal medicines and organic method of farming.
Noronisa Marangit, DepEd coordinator of Madaris instruction, also visited Maranao pupils and reviewed their lessons to know if they can, indeed, read the Arabic encryption.
Delos Reyes said she was concerned about the operation of the small scale mining three kilometers away from the Kalamalamahan high school “because students are hired to work in this sites using the traditional way of segregating gold from the ore." (Violeta M. Gloria / MindaNews) |
