IP kids' schooling in Cebu City university illegal: DepEd-7
By John Rey Saavedra
CEBU CITY – The Department of Education (DepEd) in Central Visayas on Tuesday said the University of San Carlos-Talamban Campus here has no permit to conduct blended learning classes for the indigenous peoples (IP) children from Mindanao.
This, after social workers on Feb. 15 rescued 19 IP children from the university's retreat house, where they have been held since March last year.
Salustiano Jimenez, DepEd-7 regional director, said the children from Davao del Norte and Sultan Kudarat would be considered as “illegally enrolled” if the USC could not present a permit to conduct such kind of blended learning.
Jimenez, however, said the USC has a permit for its existing elementary and high school curricula.
In a statement, priests running the USC claimed the children who are members of the Ata Manobo tribe in Mindanao arrived in Cebu on March 11, 2020 to complete their “modular schooling”.
“We will find out in the Learners Information System (LIS) of DepEd if the names of those IP students are listed. If we can’t find their names in the LIS and they have no assigned learner’s reference numbers (LRN), then they are considered as illegally enrolled,” Jimenez said.
He said the school has not provided DepEd-7 information about the presence of Lumad Bakwit School that enrolled students who are not from Cebu and Central Visayas.
The education department, he said, will never recognize the achievements of the children even if they would graduate from institutions that have not secured state clearance.
Jimenez said the Lumad Bakwit School’s system is not acceptable for children who are still in the basic education level, pointing out the need for them to be placed under close parental guidance.
“That’s why our schools are static. They are in the community where the learners are residing. They should go to school under the guidance and direction of their parents,” he added.
Jimenez also called out the organizers of the Lumad Bakwit School not to subject the learners to tedious travels from one place to another, saying that “children must study in a school, not in different places”.
He, however, said the Philippine education system recognizes student exchange programs that allow learners to study abroad to be exposed to different cultures and school systems.
The Lumad Bakwit School's move to bring the IP children to Cebu for education does not pass the criteria of a student exchange program because the children are just hopping from one province to another in the country, Jimenez said.
The DepEd-7 chief said he will find out if other private institutions in Cebu are also accepting IP children from Mindanao for modular-type of studies.
“To our parents, we have to be very careful and to validate the record of the school before we allow our kids to be enrolled kay lisod na ang panahon (with the current situation now). If we care for our children. It’s not only the pandemic that we should worry about, but also a crisis like this that affects our children,” he said. (PNA)