- Negros Oriental residents laud President Marcos Jr. for prioritizing education reforms in his 4th SONA, focusing on teacher welfare, learning recovery, and student mental health.
- DepEd officials welcome new initiatives like increased guidance counselor support, anti-bullying programs like PEACE, and infrastructure expansion, including additional classrooms.
- Locals appreciate efforts on literacy, numeracy, and teacher resources, while urging better-quality laptops and more budgetary support for hiring licensed school counselors.
Negros Oriental residents commended President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his plans and initiatives on further enhancing the education system of the country.President Marcos, in his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA), underscored the strengthening of the education sector with emphasis on the welfare of teachers and learning recovery of students, with an eye on the primary issues of health, technology, interconnectivity, compensation, and infrastructure.
Dr. Juditha Mapue, DepEd-Dumaguete Division assistant schools division chief, said in a phone interview that several of the programs the President indicated in the SONA are already being implemented in schools. "But we welcome further implementing these programs and we are grateful to the President for prioritizing education as one of his administration's priorities", Mapue said to the Philippine News Agency.
Marcos added bullying, mental health, and depression should also be addressed, highlighting the need for additional school counselors. Mapue mentioned that last July 21, the DepEd-Negros Island Region rolled out its PEACE (Powering Empathy, Acceptance, and Connection Everyday) program to respond to bullying and ensure safer and more inclusive school climate.
She added that bullying cases should be addressed because these would impact victims' attendance and learning capacity. Mapue added that they would hope that the DepEd would receive more budgetary support to create additional plantilla items for guidance counselors, since there are not enough in schools.
They have only three guidance counselors in the city division, and the others are merely teacher-counselors. It is a hard-to-fill position requiring a licensed professional guidance counselor with a master's degree, Mapue added.
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"If the President includes more items, we will be glad because it means that we can already hire guidance counsellors for the various schools and we are awaiting that," she continued. The counselors in the city division not only serve in cases of bullying but also counsel learners, particularly in senior high school, for making appropriate career path decisions.
Analyn, 16, a senior high school student of a state-owned school in Bacong town, thanked the President for placing emphasis on bullying. She claimed to have been bullied by some classmates who 'took advantage' of her, though she did not say more about it.
The girl said she was fortunate that the school acted and had the abuse terminated, as she was already on the brink of depression. Christine Ventura, a three-time mother, expressed gratitude to the President for the DepEd literacy and numeracy program because it is hard for her to educate her children if she herself is not literate.
Ventura added that she is keeping her fingers crossed that her children will receive quality education and secure jobs that would ease their present life condition and she just feels lucky that they are willing and cooperative to go to school.
Mapue added that it is also inspiring to hear the President announce that there will be additional classrooms for the public schools since it is always a perennial issue for DepEd. On laptops for teachers, Mapue explained that they are hoping they would be provided with better units, considering some of the schools here had substandard units which were also probed for the suspected anomalous procurement.
