‘3-day class week’ shelved; shuttle scheme next option

After drawing criticism, the Department of Education (DepEd) shelved a proposal to hold three-day school weeks to cope with the shortage of classrooms in the most congested campuses in Metro Manila.

As a new school year opens on Monday, DepEd officials said they would instead work out a student transfer and shuttle service scheme for overcrowded public schools in Caloocan as well as in Quezon City and Valenzuela City.

“We will not implement the three-day school week this school year because we haven’t finished our study,” Assistant Secretary Jesus Mateo said in a news conference Friday.

Earlier this week,  DepEd officials said some schools in Caloocan considered dividing their student population in half and having each group come to school on alternating days.

Parents immediately shot down the proposal, but DepEd officials said they would reserve the scheme for “a worst-case scenario” or when schools are unable to handle the enrollment volume on June 2.

“Upon the instruction from DepEd central office, the implementation of the three-day work week schedule of  classes starting June 2, 2014, is temporarily discontinued pending the results of further studies,” Luz Almeda, DepEd regional director for Metro Manila, said in a memo Friday.

Mateo said a transfer-shuttle scheme had so far been arranged in Valenzuela, where at least 140 late enrollees in the congested Malinta Elementary School– Pinalagad Annex would be picked up daily from that school, brought to Karuhatan West and then returned to Malinta using four to six DepEd vans.

The city government reportedly agreed to shoulder the fuel cost for the entire year.

“Through this transfer service we can protect the class size in Pinalagad Annex and Karuhatan West (will be tapped for its) extra space,” Mateo explained, adding that a similar system was also being worked out with the Quezon City government.