DepEd blames ‘lag’ in reporting for private school enrollment drop

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MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) on Wednesday blamed the “lag” in the reporting of private schools for the drop in their enrollment figures for School Year 2021 to 2022.

During the hearing of the Senate basic education committee, panel chair Senator Sherwin Gatchalian expressed concern at the drop in enrollment for private schools from the previous 3.3 million in 2020 to only 1.9 million in 2021.

However, Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said private schools have lagged in their enrollment reporting.

“We note that the private schools lagged in their reporting of enrollment, so we are hoping we will see higher enrollment than what we have… There are a few [private schools] that have resumed [operations] but there were also other notifications of closure for this year,” said Malaluan.

“This quick count does not give us the individual student profile and that is what will tell us by [the data that will come by the] end of October—how many of these were transferees from private to public, and vice versa,” he added.

Gatchalian, meanwhile, noted that the drop in enrollment may lead to the closure of some private schools and the displacement of its teaching staff. He surmised that many of the students may have transferred to public schools.

Based on data from DepEd that was presented by Gatchalian, a total of 28 million students have enrolled in public and private schools for this school year. Of this number, over 26 million have enrolled in public schools.

The total enrollment figure was higher than the 26 million enrollees in 2020—the year when the country imposed lockdowns due to the pandemic—and the 27 million in 2019.

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/MUF