27.2M students start new school year
AS SCHOOL year 2019-2020 opened on Monday, 27.2 million students nationwide went to their kinder, elementary, junior high school, and senior high school classes, according to the Department of Education (DepEd). “Given our continuously increasing population and the challenges that we have to hurdle, we are likewise increasing our efforts to deliver quality, accessible, relevant, and liberating basic education… We are also continuously upgrading our facilities by improving resistance to typhoons and earthquakes,” DepEd Secretary Leonor M. Briones said in her message on the opening of classes.
Modern school
Education Secretary Leonor M. Briones interacts with Grade 8 and 12 students at Signal Village National High School in Taguig City on the opening day of the new school year.
Makeshift classroom after earthquake
Children of the Aeta indigenous community hold their first day of class in a makeshift classroom at the Diaz Elementary School in Porac, Pampanga on Monday. The school’s classrooms were destroyed during the magnitude-6.1 earthquake that struck parts of the Central Luzon region last April 22.
Early bird
A student waits at a makeshift classroom in Toong Integrated School, located in a mountain village in Cebu City, as she arrives early on the first day of school year 2019-2020. There are over two million public elementary and high school students in the Central Visayas Region.
Safety tips
A police officer talks to students of Agsam Integrated School in Lanuza, Surigao del Sur to reinforce the distribution of leaflets containing safety and security tips for students as the new school year starts. The Philippine National Police deployed some 120,000 officers nationwide to assist in the opening of classes.
