Department of Education on Thursday said that almost 10 million students have registered in public and private schools nationwide. This is just after 2 weeks of the opening of the month-long enrollment period conducted mostly through virtual means.
The total number of enrolled learners was at 9,961,396 as of Thursday morning, with 9,642,105 coming from public schools, DepEd data showed.
Calabarzon is the region with the most number of enrolled learners at 1,662,239, followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) with 1,402,751, according to the DepEd data.
Central Luzon comes after the capital region with 1,103,213, data showed.
Over 27 million learners were enrolled in schools last year.
However, there are still challenges yet to be overcome by the education sector.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said enrollment data — where the highly-urbanized regions took lead — showed that there were challenges to remote enrollment mechanisms in rural areas.
“‘Yong online at tawag. Maraming areas ang hirap sa signal,” said ACT Secretary-General Raymond Basilio.
[Many areas have difficulty with online and phone signals.]
Despite the good turnout, some parents are still having second thoughts whether to enroll their children during the pandemic.
Beatriz Nantes, who lives in Camalig, Albay, said she would allow only one of her 4 children to return to school since her daughter studied in a mountainous area where there are barely any cases of the new coronavirus.
Nantes said she would not enroll her other children since their school was in an area where there is a high risk of contracting the disease, even as the DepEd planned to implement alternatives to in-person classes.
“Hindi ko papapasukin ang 3 ko pong anak… sa isang taon na lang po,” she said.
[I won’t let my 3 children go to school… maybe in the next year.]
The coming school year is scheduled to start on August 24.
