DepEd Bataan office
BALANGA CITY – A report obtained from the provincial office of the Department of Education here on Thursday showed that 11 private schools in Bataan have been forced to close because of the coronavirus disease.
Of the 11 schools, two were permanently closed while nine are under temporary closure effective this school year.
There was no private college involved in the closure but only schools offering kindergarten to senior high schools.
The district office has jurisdiction over all schools in the towns of Dinalupihan, Hermosa, Orani, Samal, Abucay, Pilar, Orion, Limay, Mariveles, Bagac and Morong. Balanga City has a separate city division of schools.
According to the report, the application to close of the 11 private schools were processed and approved by DepEd’s Region 3 office in the City of San Fernando in Pampanga.
Reasons given by school administrators for their closure were lack of enrollment due to Covid-19 and no available learning management system.
Affected by the permanent closure of the two private schools were 372 learners, while 804 learners with the temporary closure of the other nine private schools.
It was said that some children were forced to transfer to public schools after their parents, either father or mother, lost their employment as overseas Filipino workers because of the pandemic.
In the city school division of Balanga, only one private school stopped operation due to the migration of the owner to a foreign country and not because of Covid-19.
Calls to the office of the provincial schools’superintendent were referred to the private school supervisor who was reportedly in a meeting and could not be disturbed as of uploading time.
