City of San Fernando, Pampanga—The Department of Education declared January 30, 2016 as the commencement of the Early Registration for the SY 2016-2017 in all public elementary and secondary to achieve universal participation and completion of the cycle.

With the theme “Makapagaral ay Karapatan Mo, Magpalista”, this massive
advocacy campaign will run until February 29 to find children and youth not
currently enrolled and bring them back to school. The Early Registration primarily seeks
to ensure that all five-year old children are enrolled in Kinder and to locate, identify, and
enroll out-of-school children and youth who belong in remote locations, difficult
circumstances, disadvantaged groups or those who are discriminated, and those who
have disabilities.

Through this measure, DepEd also aims to understand the barriers to access to
education and identify local interventions to bring them to school and ensure that they
do not drop out. To achieve these objectives, schools are urged to come up with various
activities such as house-to-house campaigns, meetings with local or barangay officials
and civic organizations to help and locate children who should be in schools.

As a basis for the early registration, the birth certificate of the child must be
presented upon registration. If this is not available during the registration, the document
can be submitted within the school year. School officials and parents are also reminded of the No Collection Policy being implemented by the DepEd as stipulated in DepEd Order No. 41, s.2012.

Special Education (SPED) Centers, trained SPED teachers, and all health
personnel will assist in locating children and youth with disabilities from 5 to 18 years
old who have not been to school. Meanwhile, learners who have dropped out from
elementary or secondary schools who want to be enrolled in the formal system through
the Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM) or the Alternative Learning System (ALS) need to
present their report card to the Teacher-in-Charge of registration.•