The Department of Education is expecting around 28 million students in the coming school year, amid learning losses and perennial challenges in the education sector, it’s all hands on deck again as government prepares for the reopening of over 47,000 public schools nationwide on August 29.
The DepEd has yet to release initial data on enrolment, but as of last year, some 28.7 million students were enrolled in basic education, with around 24 million in public kindergarten, elementary, and high schools.
The share of students enrolled in public schools has been continuously increasing in recent years, as more Filipinos encounter economic challenges, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This has resulted in teacher and classroom shortages, which education officials and advocates recognize as a contributing factor in learning losses.
Additionally, there are over 12,000 private basic education institutions in the country, but data indicates that more than 400 had closed since 2020.
“This year, we acknowledge that we will face a lot of tasks and challenges in the face of the perennial problems that we have. Rest assured that DepEd continues its efforts to address these challenges, but we will need a whole-of-nation approach to successfully do this,” Education Undersecretary for operations Revsee Escobedo said during the recent launch of Oplan Balik Eskwela.
He underscored the importance of ensuring that schools have access to basic necessities, including communication facilities, transportation, peace and order, and health and safety.
The perennial and continuing woes of the DepEd that has been exacerbated by the pandemic cannot be solved in just one year, possibly not even a decade. The effort to strive towards the goal of world class education, through continuous improvement is a long term commitment, and every school opening is a milestone.
If the DepEd has done everything it can to make this schoolyear better than the previous one, it should show in how the country’s schools reopen over the next few days, and ultimately operate throughout the year.*
