THE Department of Education yesterday said it is still confident of reaching its enrollment target this school year as more schools have yet to upload their enrollment data in its Learner Information System (LIS).
Data from the DepEd LIS showed that as of September 15, the number of enrollees in public and private schools nationwide stood at 26.9 million.
The number also includes 330,578 enrolled in the department’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) and 18,466 in Philippine schools abroad.
The department has set an enrollment target of 28.8 million students this school year, up from last year’s 28.4 million.
“We are confident that we will reach close to the numbers that we had last year,” Education Assistant Secretary Francis Cesar Bringas told the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing.
“We have several schools in several regions that have yet to upload (data) in the LIS but we are confident that we are recovering the numbers by that time encoding in the system is done,” he added.
Earlier, Bringas said the department has allowed late enrolment until September 30.
He explained that the DepEd decided to extend the enrollment period due to the “recent disruptions due to typhoons” that even led to the temporary cancellation of classes in some areas.
Bringas said public schools do not refuse enrolment even after classes have resumed, adding that DepEd already has measures in place to locate and determine why students have yet to enroll despite repeated announcements by the department and local authorities.
