Zoning imposed in night high schools to stop congestion

Zoning of night high schools has been enforced recently in Cebu City to stop congestion of these schools with students from other places, said a top official of the city division of the Department of Education.

City division superintendent Leonilo Oliva said his office is now preventing students, who are not Cebu City residents, from enrolling in these night schools in the city.

Oliva said enrollment in night schools in the city has increased resulting in the notable congestion of these night classes.

Oliva said the students currently enrolled in night schools already reached over 15,000 or beginning to equal the 16,000 students enrolled in regular classes.

Night high schools, which started in 1994 in the city, were initially set for working students but Oliva said non-working students have also enrolled at present.

"Some students prefer the night classes because they want to have leisure in the morning. Only a small percentage of night class students have part-time jobs," Oliva said.

Besides congestion, the city's expenses for electricity, water and salaries for night class teachers and personnel have also hit at least P40 million yearly, said Oliva.

Oliva said this prompted DepEd to cancel classes on weekends, which drew poor attendance anyway, to slash the expenses.

Another move of DepEd to decongest these schools was to change the night high school curriculum from the usual four-year to a five-year course.

So far, this caused a two-percent drop in number of night class students, since most of them now prefer to go for the four-year course of regular class instead. -Jasmin R. Uy