With the government still 3 million short of its student target for this school year, the Department of Education said late enrollees will be accepted until the end of the month.
DepEd deputy spokesperson Assistant Secretary Francis Bringas said the decision was reached in light of the disruptions brought about by the recent weather disturbances.
“We are on course of meeting our 28.8 million target. We will be looking at a final number considering the variance between Grade 12 who graduated and incoming Kindergarten, among others,” he said.
As of Wednesday, only a total of 25.8 million students were enrolled.
Data from DepEd’s Learner Information System (LIS) showed that Calabarzon has the most number of enrollees so far at 3,821,034, followed by Central Luzon with 2,817,827, and National Capital Region with 2,675,386.
The Cordillera Administrative Region logged the lowest number of enrollees at 406,815.
“Once 100% of schools have reported, we will have the official number for this school year,” Bringas said.
He said DepEd will also implement “child-find procedures” to determine the reasons why some students are not returning to school.
“The reason for not enrolling is not because they are displaced. Public schools do not refuse enrolment,” Bringas said.
“Schools will employ child-find procedures to determine reasons for not returning to school. ALS will be the other alternative for them to continue if they are unable to continue formal schooling for some reasons,” he added.
Meanwhile, amid calls to review the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education (Republic Act No. 10931), Senator Sherwin Gatchalian is seeking the expansion of the capacity of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) to ensure that more qualified students can receive free college education.
He said the free higher education law, which he co-authored and co-sponsored, increased the number of basic education learners who pursued college.
Before the enactment of the free higher education law, the progression rates from high school to college stood at 54% and 62% for Academic Years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, respectively.
When the free higher education law was implemented, the progression rate from senior high school to college surged to an average of 81% from 2018 to 2022.
Senator Pia Cayetano, for her part, backed the position of both Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno and CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera that there is a need to revisit the free tertiary education program.
“We will continue supporting the financial assistance to students. But we also need to prioritize the courses that would have a direct contribution to economic and social development,” Cayetano said.
“We have to allocate our limited public funds judiciously,” Cayetano added.
