The Department of Education said it was ready for the opening of school year (SY) 2020-2021 scheduled on Monday, Oct. 5.
“Naniniwala kaming handa na kami… Kasama sa pagiging handa ang paghahanda rin sa contingencies,” Education Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio said in an interview over Dobol B sa News TV.
As of Saturday, 22.5 million students have enrolled in public schools nationwide.
Education Undersecretary Tonisito Umali said the number of public enrollees had reached 99.68 percent of last year’s total.
Meanwhile, the number of private school enrollees only recently surpassed half of last year’s total.
“Mayroon na po tayong 2.16 million naiulat po sa atin, mahigit na po iyan sa 50 porsiyento. Alam po natin na marami pa pong mga bata ang hindi nagpapatala sa ating pampribadong paaralan, ngunit mayroon din pong humigit-kumulang na 400 to 450,000 formerly private school learners nagpunta sa public schools,” Umali said in Saturday’s Laging Handa briefing.
“So combined, we already have 24.72 million public and private school enrollees, and that’s like 89 percent of the numbers that we had for school year 2019 to 2020 which is, more or less, 27.7 million,” he added.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the education sector to shift to distance learning delivery methods as face-to-face classes for the SY were prohibited by President Rodrigo Duterte without a vaccine. John Ezekiel J. Hirro