ILOILO CITY, Iloilo, Philippines (PNA) — The Department of Education 6 (DepEd 6) is expecting problems like lack of chairs, classrooms, textbooks and teachers to arise as opening of classes for school year 2011-2012 officially starts on June 6.

Dr. Mildred Garay, officer-in-charge of DepEd-6 said these concerns are attributed to the advance implementation of the universal kindergarten education policy to be made mandatory by next school year.

“This policy is not yet mandatory as of now because the policy and guidelines are still under review but we are encouraging parents ahead of time to enroll their children this school year so that they could be accommodated for Grade 1 at the age of 6,” she said.

This summer, Garay said they have required Western Visayas public schools to have summer class for pre-school children aged five years old but who will turn six years old this school opening.

Garay said they require each school to have one additional classroom and kindergarten teacher to accommodate pre-school children aged five years old and below if they were not able to attend summer class.

She said school administrators could also use any structure available for half-day classes, adding that teachers could only accommodate 20 to 25 pupils per class to avoid overcrowding.

Garay added that DepEd 6 has already tapped the help of local government units (LGUs) particularly the Local School Board to address these problems especially in hiring additional kindergarten teachers.

She said the agency may hire teachers as long as there are vacant positions whether plantilla or casual.

The DepEd 6 officer-in-charge added she already requested additional textbooks and chairs from their central office in Manila to replace old ones.

During the full implementation of the universal kindergarten policy, Garay said those who could not be accommodated by public schools could enroll in barangay day-care centers or private schools as long as they could meet the mandatory education requirement before enrolling in Grade 1.