DepEd unfazed by low senior HS enrollment

MANILA, Philippines - Despite the reported low enrollment in the senior high school program, outgoing Education Secretary Armin Luistro said yesterday he is not worried about possible problems that might arise when schools open on Monday.

Luistro believes that over one million students are enrolled in different schools nationwide, although the latest available enrolment figures for Grade 11 only show around 432,000 enrollees as of Thursday morning.

“I estimate that there are now more than a million students enrolled in Grade 11 schools nationwide in both public and private senior high schools,” he said.

Luistro told The STAR that less than half of the senior high schools in the country have submitted their list of enrollees, and that they expect submission to reach 80 percent over the weekend.

“I am not worried about the enrolment more than the technical challenges we are facing in our first-ever online enrolment system,” he said.

“On or before June 17, we would be able to present a more solid report on the enrolment statistics for the first cohort of senior high school students.” 

Various groups have expressed concern over the low enrolment turnout in the days leading up to the opening of classes.

DepEd data showed that around 1.5 million Grade 10 completers will become the first batch of senior high school students in the incoming academic year.

Of the number, 1.2 million graduated from public junior high schools, while another 300,000 came from private schools.

DepEd said it expects 800,000 students to enroll in public senior high schools, with the rest enrolling in private schools or in universities and colleges that will offer senior high school tracks.

The government has allocated over P12 billion to subsidize public Grade 10 completers who will enroll in a private school for senior high school.

Earlier, Luistro said problems that would be encountered on Monday will be due to students who will try to enroll on the actual school opening.

He urged students to enroll early for them to have a secured slot in their choice of school.

He also ordered school officials to search for school dropouts in their respective areas.