Enrollees for SY 2020-2021 account for 76% of last year's figure

A total of 21,344,915 learners have enrolled for basic education in private and public schools for the coming school year as of Friday, representing 76 percent of last year’s enrollment, according to the Department of Education.

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Of the total of 21,344,915, about 20,147,020 have enrolled in public schools alone, representing 88 percent of last year’s total enrollment in public institutions. And a total of 1,169,976 enrollees have enlisted in private schools.

Education Secretary Leonor Briones said in a statement, “We anticipate the figures to still increase in the coming weeks due to a lag in reporting of enrollment data, especially from private schools. Their enrollment period does not necessarily coincide with the enrollment period of DepEd.” 

Reports for homeschooling are not yet available as some learners of the Alternative Learning System have been affected by the loss of jobs triggered by the coronavirus disease pandemic, Briones said.

Briones added that the current enrollment number are encouraging as it shows that many parents still decided to continue the education of their children despite the situation because of Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are optimistic that we can meet our adjusted target of 80% of last year’s enrollment (27.7M) submitted to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA),” she said.

In an earlier reports Briones said DepEd will still allow late enrollees, citing Section V-D of Department Order No. 003, series of 2018 which reads: “A school may accept late enrollees provided that the learner will be able to meet eighty percent (80%) of the prescribed number of school days for each school year and the quarterly requirement to pass the grade level as governed by the latest existing applicable DepEd issuances.”

Briones added, “We express our appreciation to the general public, especially the parents of our learners, which continues to believe that DepEd can deliver learning opportunities through various learning delivery modalities in a safe manner.”

“We thank the President for his consistent support for education, including ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ for our funding needs.”

Briones also thanked all of those who helped and contributed in the preparation for the opening of classes this school year.