Over 200,000 private school students transfer to public schools for the coming school year —Briones

Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Wednesday said that at least 233,169 students from private schools transferred to public schools so far due to the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

In a press conference for Brigada Eskwela, Briones said one of the factors is that many parents lost their job as many businesses stopped operations due to COVID-19 situation.

“At saka 233,169 na learners from the private schools ang nag-migrate. Dati nag-warning ako na ang mga nasa private school, nagma-migrate na sa public schools,” she said.

Undersecretary Jess Mateo reported that 18,871,245 out of the 27.7 million expected students have registered for the coming school year.

Nearly 9 million students have yet to enroll.

Based on the data presented by Mateo, the region with the least number of enrollees was Cordillera Administrative Region with 305,645; followed by the Caraga Region with 475,350; then the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with 515,748.

Meanwhile, CALABARZON has the most number of enrollees with 2,553,471; followed by Central Luzon with 2,022,226; then the National Capital Region with 1,995,087.

DepEd set the first two weeks of June for online enrollment, while the other two weeks for "physical" enrollment, where parents and learners will submit enrollment forms remotely or via drop boxes.

However, only around half of the expected students enrolled on the last day of the month, so DepEd decided to extended it until July 15.

With only one week remaining for enrollment, Mateo said around 68 percent of the expected students have registered, as of Wednesday morning.—AOL, GMA News