THE Department of Education (DepEd)-Davao is expecting more enrollees in the upcoming school year (SY) 2021-2022 compared to the recently-finished SY 2020-2021 that logged 1.2 million enrollees in the entire region.

DepEd-Davao spokesperson Jenielito Atillo said in a virtual presser that the SY 2020-2021, the pilot SY for the blended and remote learning system, had recorded 1,289,331 enrollees for both public and private schools in the region.

Based on the breakdown, 1,140,170 were enrolled in public school and 149,065 in private school.

Atillo said the number of enrollees in public schools is higher compared to SY 2019-2020.

"Hinay ang sugod nato tungod sa kabalaka sa Covid[-19], but eventually, niapas gihapon ang mga ginikanan (Only few students enrolled during the start of the school year due to the threat of the Covid-19, but in the long run many parents still enrolled their kids)," he said during the AFP-PNP Press Corps virtual presser.

The official also said they saw a "massive exodus" of learners transferring from private to public schools due to the economic impact the Covid-19 pandemic has brought.

Meanwhile, classes in public elementary and high schools in the country will resume on September 13.

Atillo said the official period of enrollment will be from August 16 to September 13.

He said they will continue to accommodate late enrollees even during the start of classes.

Prior to the official enrollment, the official said 239,000 students were already enlisted through the early enrollment.

"This is a very promising figure, considering the fact, gilampasan ani ang figure sa milabayng tuig sa [SY] 2019[-2020] (the figure is way higher compared to SY 2019-2020), which is only 220,000 in the early enrollment," Atillo said, adding they are expecting more enrollees in the coming days.

He reiterated that the new school year will still be under the blended learning modality after President Rodrigo Duterte rejected the proposed resumption of the face-to-face (F2F) classes in the country.

The DepEd official previously said 18 public schools in the region are on standby in case the President will give the idea a go signal.

Duterte made the decision amid the threat posed by the Delta variant of Sars-Cov-2, which has been shown to be 60 percent more contagious.

Atillo, however, declined to name the schools but revealed that all of them are outside Davao City.