NSPC to kick off in Tuguegarao City amid coronavirus scare

Folk dancers perform before delegates of the 2020 National Schools Press Conference during the welcome program in Tuguegarao City. (Photo by Anna Liza Maliwanag Teves)

MANILA, Philippines–After its previous postponement due to the threat of  the coronavirus disease (COVID 19), the Department of Education (DepEd) is expected to open the 2020 National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) on Monday in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan province.

Thousands of campus journalists and student paper advisers from all over the country will battle it out on different journalistic contests during the weeklong event, which is slated to run from March 9-13.

The DepEd originally scheduled the culmination of the annual NSPC from February 17-21 but later on suspended the said event, which is also considered as the largest gathering of the brightest campus journos in the country, because of COVID 19 scare.

Young scribes from elementary and secondary schools nationwide will lock horns on different writing contests such as news, feature, editorial, sports, copyreading and headline writing, and science and technology writing, photojournalism, editorial cartooning, and column writing (exhibit only).

Other delegates will compete in group categories, which consist of radio and TV scriptwriting and broadcasting, collaborative desktop publishing, and online publishing.

The education department will also adjudge during the sessions outstanding campus journalists and school paper advisers from the country’s 17 regions.

Dubbed as the “Olympics of campus journalism,” NSPC is organized annually by DepEd in pursuant to Republic Act 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act of 1991.