The Cordillera office of the Department of Education reported that there are some four hundred twenty nine thousand seven hundred seventy two learners who were able to enroll and attend classes in the different private and public schools around the region for school year 2023-2024.
Based on the data obtained from the DepEd-CAR as of August 30, 2023, the aforesaid number of learners fell short of the 437,624 learners who were able to enroll and attend classes for school year 2022-2023 in the different parts of the region.
However, education officials are confident that the learners for the current school year will be able to exceed the recorded learners during the previous school year because there are still schools that have not yet submitted their enrollment date in the agency’s learner information system.
For kindergarten learners, there are 29,243 enrollees for the current school year compared to the 31,320 learners during the previous school year. Of the 29,243 kindergarten learners, 26,380 are in public schools, 2,706 are in private schools while 157 are in state universities and colleges (SUCs).
On the other hand, there are 196,696 elementary learners who are now in school for the current school year compared to the 202,451 pupils that attended elementary classes during the previous school year. Of the said number of learners, 182,600 are in public schools, 13,571 are in private schools while 525 are in SUCs.
For the current school year, there are 135,264 junior high school learners compared to the 135,974 junior high school students who were enrolled during the previous school year. Of the enrolled junior high school students this year, 107,762 are in public schools, 26,112 are in private schools and 1,390 are in SUCs.
There are 68,569 senior high school students who were able to enroll for the current school year compared to the 67,879 learners enrolled in senior high school during the previous school year. Of the said number of learners this year, 45,420 are in public schools, 21,715 are in private schools and 1,434 are in SUCs.
Regular classes for the school year 2023-2024 officially started last August 29, 2023.
Regional and provincial education officials are conducting inspections in the different schools within their areas of jurisdiction to check on their capacity to accommodate more learners to avoid problems of overcrowding and congestion that might compromise the learning environment of learners.
For schools that have already exceeded their capacity, the education department directed school officials to already stop accepting late enrollees and subsequently refer them to the nearest school in their area that did not yet exceed the prescribed capacity of learners.
Further, schools are still mandated to implement the blended learning, especially when its learners have already exceeded the allowed cap that had been earlier imposed to be able to cater to the learning needs of the enrollees.
