DepEd seen to improve services to public school students

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) is expected to improve its services to public school students with its almost complete and updated data for its Learner’s Information System (LIS).

Launched in 2011, the LIS is an online registration for public school students nationwide.

It provides accurate information on students, including the total number of enrollees in public schools as well as where they are. The system can also monitor students who transfer between public schools.

To date, only 140 or 0.3 percent of the total 46,648 public elementary and high schools have yet to submit data for academic year 2014-2015, according to DepEd Assistant Secretary Rey Laguda.

“The school divisions where the 140 schools are located have been instructed to submit the data,” Laguda said Friday.

The DepEd said there are more than 20 million enrollees in public elementary and high schools this school year based on its June 6 data.

The system also allows the department to better track students in non-formal educational institutions so that more appropriate interventions can be formulated.

“Considering the size of the department and the number of schools under it, it is very critical for the agency to be equipped with the right information at the right time to be able to make better decisions,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said.

“This is essentially an online registry of learners that is important for any educational system or institution. We need to continually get to know our learners better so that we can respond better,” he said.

He said the system has helped DepEd in planning, budgeting and resource allocation.

“What used to take 10 months to collect, consolidate and validate has now been reduced to three months. This is a result of the use of technology and the power of our people,” Luistro said.