In the second week of classes, the Department of Education (DepEd) has achieved almost 90% percent of last school year’s enrollment with 24.8 million enrollees in both public and private schools nationwide.

Enrollment data from DepEd showed that as of Tuesday, Oct. 13, the enrollment for the basic education level for School Year (SY) 2020-2021 has reached 24, 892, 492. This, DepEd said, was 89.63 percent of the total enrollment in SY 2019-2020 recorded at 27.7 million.
 
Currently, there are 22, 642, 639 enrollees in public schools which comprises 100 % of last year’s enrollment. There are also 2, 193, 998 enrollees in private schools or 50.96% of SY 2019-2020 enrollment.
 
The national enrollment data covers public and private schools as well as State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) and Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs) and learners across all basic education level including Kindergarten, Elementary or Grades 1 to 6, Junior High School (JHS) or Grades 7 to 10, and Senior High School (SHS) or Grades 11 and 12.

Also included non-graded learners with disabilities and those under the Alternative Learning System (ALS) program.
 
 
DepEd’s latest data showed that there are 1, 782, 101 pupils enrolled in Kindergarten; 11, 903, 628 in Elementary; 7, 869, 306 in JHS; and 2, 861, 131 in SHS. There are also 72, 597 non-grade learners with disabilities who registered along with 403, 729 under the ALS program.
 
The highest number of enrollees were recorded from Region IV-A (CALABARZON) with 3.4 million followed by National Capital Region (NCR) with 2.5 million and Region III (Central Luzon) with 2.5 million.
 
During this week’s virtual press briefing, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said that students who have yet to enroll may still do so until November.

For those who will fail to enroll this school year, she noted that they can be accommodated under the ALS program.
 
Amid reported problems during the first week of classes, Briones said that DepEd was pleased that it has pushed through with the school opening on Oct. 5 even amid the pandemic.
 
“We recognize that there are challenges but if we did not proceed, if we freeze the school year, we would have lost many months of learning,” Briones said.

“If we moved the school opening next year, we will be among the last two countries - Philippines and Kenya - in the world with no classes,” she added.
 
Briones maintained that the country, being able to open schools amid the challenges brought by COVID-19, is “victory” in itself.

“Generally, as a whole, we had a very successful launching of the school year and we will continue to respond to the challenges ahead,” she ended.