Public schools to accept students affected by private school closures in Western Visayas
MANILA, Philippines — Public schools are ready to accept the students affected by the closure of 76 private schools in Western Visayas, an official of the Department of Education (DepEd) said Tuesday.
DepEd Region 6 information officer Hernani Escular Jr. said that a total of 17 private schools have permanently closed this year while the remaining 59 temporarily ceased their operations for school year 2022-2023.
Escular said that while DepEd does not yet have data on the number of learners affected by the closures, its school division offices are already coordinating and facilitating the transfer of the students to private and public schools.
“Our school division currently is providing the necessary assistance to our learners to transfer may it be to another private school or to a public school. There is no problem in accepting those affected learners in our public school system,” he said in an interview over ABS CBN News Channel.
“For learners affected by this school closures may it be permanent or temporary, our public school system is ready to accept them,” Escular added.
The DepEd official explained that among the common reasons for the school closures are low enrollment turnout and financial constraints brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of the 76 schools that have shut down mostly offer kindergarten and Grades 1 to 6 but Escular said some of them offer junior high school and senior high school.
Affected students, he said, are already being assisted in transferring to another school.
“That’s currently our main target right now, it is to assist our affected learners. The parents were somehow shocked with this closure but education must go on,” Escular said.
“We cannot let a day pass by that our learners are not in school,” he added.
For school year 2022-2023, about 2.2 million students have enrolled, Escular said, which is 6.7% higher than that recorded in 2021-2022 with 2.1 million enrollees.
DepEd earlier this month said some 425 private schools have closed since the height of the pandemic in 2020.
A total of 20,838 students had been affected by the closures while around 10,000 transferred to public schools.
