COVID-19 pushes 4 million Pinoy learners out of school —DepEd

Four million learners decided not to enroll this school year due to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Department of Education (Deped) on Wednesday.

"Mayroon tayong extraordinary non-participation on account of COVID. As of today, that is about four million learners," Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said at a Senate hearing.

"Pinag-uusapan namin 'yan sa Department how we will address that expansion for this year of our non-participation," he added. "Our main focus for now is really those who have enrolled for the opening."

Based on the DepEd data presented during the inquiry, there are 23,078,394 Kindergarten to Grade 12 students who enrolled nationwide, as of August 11.

This equates to 83.1 percent of the 27,770,263 students that enrolled last school year.

Of those who registered this year, 21.48 million chose to study in public schools while only 1.5 enrolled in private schools.

"[For] the private schools, their enrollment is about 2.8 million less than last year," Malaluan said.

Meanwhile, over 333,000 have enrolled in the Alternative Learning System.

During the same hearing, some senators suggested that students must be exempted from getting failing grades amid the pandemic.

Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Francis Tolentino also moved to postpone the August 24 opening of classes in areas under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ). -MDM, GMA News