Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 1) — Despite the extended enrollment period, the Department of Education said it is unlikely to meet the targeted 27 million enrollees this year due to the health crisis and economic slowdown in the country.
The DepEd has extended the enrollment period to July 15 for the upcoming school year. It maintained that classes will still start on August 24.
“Pino-project na namin na hindi makukuha ang 27 million [dahil sa ating] economic situation,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said Wednesday.
[Translation: We project that we are unlikely to reach 27 million due to our economic situation.]
This was the number of learners who enrolled last school year, from kindergarten to Grade 12. Of this number, 22 million enrollees were from public schools.
But this year, the agency has yet to find out whether it will reach at least 80 percent of its overall target.
“Ang projected, 80 percent lang ang papasok. Pero ang numero, sa public school nasa 70 percent na tayo. Sana humigit pa sa 80 percent ang target,” Briones said.
[Translation: We projected that 80 percent of this number will come in. But based on latest figures, we have 70 percent coming from public schools. We are hoping we will exceed our 80-percent target.]
Briones attributed the enrollment decline to the rising number of unemployed parents, including overseas Filipino workers who used to send their children to private schools.
“There are additional factors aside from the usual decisions of parents. We have more COVID cases. We have more unemployed parents at this time,” she said.
The DepEd said around 16.6 million students have already enrolled as of Wednesday. There are 15.8 mllion who have already enrolled in public schools, while 706,932 are in private schools.
Enrollment in public schools was initially scheduled to end June 30.
Briones said face-to-face learning in schools is unlikely to push through “until it is safe to do so.”
Aside from digital resources, printed modules, television and radio-based learning materials will still be made available to children who have no internet access.
