Central Luzon enrollees short by 34% – DepEd

THE number of enrollees in Central Luzon for school year 2021 to 2022 is 34 percent shy from the projected enrollment in the region, records from the Department of Education (DepEd) showed.

As of Tuesday, the enrollment figure in the region based on the Learner Information System (LIS)-Quick Count is 1,854,717 learners in public and private schools and state/local universities and colleges that offer basic education.

The figure represents only 66 percent of the projected enrollment at 2,699,515 learners, breakdown of which includes Grades 1 to 6 at 742,018 or 49 percent; Grades 7 to 10 at 484,815 or 33 percent; Grades 11 to 12 at 178,769 or 12 percent; and Kinder at 97,313 or six percent.

Policy, Planning and Research Division chief Matrose Galarion, however, said DepEd is expecting more enrollees in the coming days.

“Because of our current situation where it is difficult for teachers to get out, we have put drop boxes in barangay (villages) and schools. These forms still need to be given to class advisers for encoding. This is why encoding takes time, because we can’t risk the safety of our teachers,” Galarion said in a statement.

The official also linked the shortage in the number of enrollees with certain adjustments made.

“We [DepEd] made some allowance considering our current situation. Instead of having a 100 percent projection based on the previous school year, we made an allowance of 80 percent. We consider only 80 percent of our learners will enroll because of the pandemic and other reasons,” Galarion added.

However, Galarion assured that DepEd will continuously monitor the schools with their encoding in the LIS and inform teachers to tap the assistance of system coordinators to speed up the updating of the database for enrollment.

She added the deadline for enrollment is on September 13, but will be extended in consideration of the pandemic.

“We will be more lenient in accepting enrollees even if the classes have already started. The percentage of attendance of the student is what really matters now, so we will be accepting learners until the first quarter of the upcoming school year,” Galarion said.