MALACAÑANG disputed on Friday the claim of Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon that more than a million students have apparently chosen not to enroll for Grade 11 which the government will start implementing in the school year that will begin next week.
But while outgoing Education Secretary Armin Luistro FSC said he was not worried about the number of Grade 11 students, the Department of Education admitted that it is now holding “child-finding” activities all over the country to persuade parents to enroll their children in the public school system.
“I estimate that there are now more than a million students enrolled in Grade 11 schools nationwide in both public and private SHS,” Luistro said in a statement released through the Palace.
“The encoded enrollees of Grade 11 students in the DepED database is at 509,000 as of 10 a.m. [Friday] morning. Of the 11,000 [senior high school] students, only around half have submitted their list of enrollees,” said Luistro.
“I am not worried about the enrollment more than the technical challenges we are facing in our first-ever online enrollment system,” he said.
“Absent any technical glitches, we should be able to reach 80 percent submission by this weekend. On or before Friday June 17, we would be able to present a more solid report on the enrollment statistics for the first cohort of SHS students,” Luistro added.
But DepEd Assistant Secretary for Governance and Operations Jesus Lorenzo R. Mateo told The Standard that the agency is now knocking on doors to persuade parents and students to enroll in Grade 11 this school year.
“DepEd schools division offices plus public and private senior high schools are conducting child-finding activities and social advocates to encourage students to enroll in Grade 11 for this school year,” Mateo said, tacitly admitting low enrollment thus far.
“Some students may be waiting for the start of the classes before they enroll, and the 11,000 plus public and private SHS are ready to accomodate them,” he added.
First done last school year, “child-finding” activities involve members of the barangay, teachers and parents going house-to-house to urge parents and students to enroll in the nearest school.
Although classes are set to start on Monday, many public schools have recorded low enrollment for senior high school under the K-to-12 program, boosting the claim of Ridon that more than a million students may be able to enroll this year.Ӭ
Ridon said that DepEd originally reported to Congress in 2015 that 2 million to 2.4 million students will enroll in Grade 11, but Luistro himself admits that only 1.5 million students turned up. “This means, at the very least half a million – possibly even a million – have opted to drop out,” Ridon said.”¨
Of the 1.5 million enrollees, a million students have enrolled in public senior high schools, while close to 500,000 have enrolled in private senior high schools, Ridon added.
Militant groups stressed that under such circumstances, DepEd is in fact setting up a situation wherein more students will be forced to enroll later on in expensive private schools just to graduate from the basic education program.
“With the rising cost of private basic education, even the voucher subsidies for students expected to be displaced in public schools this school year will surely be insufficient to cover the full cost of matriculation for most private schools,” said Sarah Elago of the Kabataan party-list.
“In the end, students and their families will have to bear the brunt of expensive education while private school owners amass more profit,” Elago said.
Meanwhile, the Senior High School Help Desk of the DepEd is now in full swing to serve as DepEd’s frontline in guiding the public when the SHS program starts its nationwide roll out on June 13.
Luistro said the help desk is also an extension of Oplan Balik Eskwela, DepEd’s annual initiative that services the needs of schools, students, and parents who encounter concerns during the opening of classes.
The Senior High School Help Desk started its operations last May 23 with hotline number 667-1188. Aside from the hotline number, a toll-free number has been provided (1800-1888-6349) and an email account (shshelpdesk@deped.gov.ph) was activated and broadly communicated to the public.