BY MERLINA HERNANDO-MALIPOT
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Enrollment in private schools this upcoming school year hit an all-time low in the past eight years as it dropped to over 70 percent, with only over one million students enrolled from kindergarten to Grade 12.
Data from the Department of Education (DepEd) showed that as of July 17, there are 1,169, 976 students enrolled in private schools across 17 regions. This, after over a month of enrollment period which started on June 1 and was extended until July 15.
Of this number, 45,754 students are in kindergarten; 259,182 in elementary; 454, 712 in Junior High School (JHS); 409,150 in Senior High School (SHS); and 1,178 non-graded learners with disabilities.
This school year’s enrollment is only 27 percent of School Year (SY) 2019-2020 enrollment of 4,304,676 – resulting to a 73 percent drop in the overall turnout.
Enrollment in private schools, based on DepEd data, are as follows: 3,094,919 for SY 2012-2013; 3,020,509 for SY 2013-2014; 2,931,309 for SY 2014-2015, and 2,909,141 for SY 2016-2017.
After the nationwide implementation of the SHS program under the K-to-12 system, the enrollment in private schools gained significant increases to 4,078,487 in SY 2017-2018 and 4,298,566 in SY 2018-2019.
Despite the low enrollment turnout, DepEd anticipates that the figures will still “increase in the coming weeks” due to a lag in reporting of enrollment data, especially from private schools.
“Their enrollment period does not necessarily coincide with the enrollment period of DepEd,” DepEd said. The agency is also waiting for data on the number of children under homeschooling.
