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November 28, 2022— The Schools Division Office (SDO) Navotas City was hailed as the SDO with the highest score in the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) in Schools (WINS) monitoring criteria as part of the first Eskwelahang Unstoppable Awards in celebration of World Toilet Day.

Presented by DepEd, in partnership with Unilever, Domex, and GIZ Philippines, the award recognized the schools’ efforts and commitments to keeping schools and communities safe for learners and children, especially with the resumption of the 5-day in-person classes in public schools nationwide.

“We, at the Department of Education recognize everyone’s concern for the health, safety and hygiene of our learners beyond the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As learning shifted from classrooms to homes in the last two years, we have witnessed the entire school community, including our partners and stakeholders, come together to support our learners as they continued engaging in distance learning, and now as we transition into 100% in-person learning we are fortunate to have the unwavering support of our partners,” Undersecretary for Legislative Affairs and Partnerships, Gerard Chan said in his speech.

Eskwelahang Unstoppable Awards also recognized five model schools across the winning SDO, namely, Bangkulasi Elementary School, Dagat- Dagatan Elementary School, Navotas Elementary School, Filemon T. Lizan Senior High School, and Bangkulasi Senior High School.

Meanwhile, SDO Bislig City in CARAGA Region was recognized as the most improved division when it comes to WINS implementation.

According to the WINS online monitoring system, 44,000 or 96.87% of public schools have access to basic hand washing facilities for School Year 2021-2022.

DepEd would soon bestow the WINS Seal of Excellence to qualifying schools.

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