According to an official of the Department of Education (DepEd), about 380,000 private school learners have transferred to public institutions for this upcoming school year because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
DepEd Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan stated that the enrollment rate for private schools will likely not reach the level that it was last year,during the hearing of the Senate basic education committee on Wednesday.
As of Wednesday morning, over 1.56 million students have enrolled in private institutions while in the previous year, there were about 4.3 million enrolled students at private schools.
Classes are scheduled to begin on August 24 under a distance learning set-up as Philippines pursues to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.