Mobile kindergarten classrooms launched

MANILA, Philippines - The first unit of several mobile kindergarten classrooms of the Department of Education (DepEd) and Bagong Henerasyon party-list group was launched yesterday in a public elementary school in Quezon City.

The mobile unit is a customized truck equipped with furniture and classroom paraphernalia as well as air conditioning. It could service up to 24 students.

The first unit will be used at the President Corazon Aquino Elementary School in Batasan Hills, Quezon City but more units are expected to be rolled out to service schools with classroom shortage.

DepEd will provide teaching materials to volunteer teachers for the program.

The President Corazon Aquino Elementary School has 632 kindergarten students crammed in four two-hour shifts, with the fourth shift lasting up to 6 p.m. daily.

In a ceremony yesterday, Education Secretary Armin Luistro signed a memorandum of agreement with Bagong Henerasyon party-list group headed by Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy for the implementation of the project.

Also present at the affair were Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista, Quezon City Schools Division Superintendent Corazon Rubio, and President Corazon Aquino Elementary School principal Paul Medrano.

Bagong Henerasyon party-list pledged to provide customized trucks for the “Kindergarten on Wheels” program as well as drivers and maintenance officers who will be present during the learning sessions when needed.

The DepEd plans to fill up the classroom backlog of 66,000 by 2013 as it implements its ambitious K+12 curriculum that adds universal kindergarten access and adds two more years to the existing 10-year basic education system.

“Budgetary constraints are not the only reasons that have held back our pre-school education program. We are now faced by lack of space for new school buildings but we intend to address this with the novel idea behind the kindergarten-on-wheels,” said Dy, vice chair of the House Committee on Welfare of Children.

Dy is the principal author of House Bill No. 1079 codifying the alternative child care laws of the country and HB 1080 seeking to establish at least one special education (SPED) center in each school division and three SPED centers in big school divisions.

She also co-authored HB 0008 that seeks to institutionalize pre-school education into the basic education system in the country.