THE Department of Education (DepEd) condemns the title of a news article published by national media outlets about the 2 million drop in enrollment, on Saturday, September 16.
On its Facebook page, DepEd said that on Thursday, September 14, Philippine Star (PhilStar) and One News Ph released a news article written by Ms. Diana Lyhd Suelto, bearing the title “Sara Blames Rallies for 2 Million Drop in Enrollment”. The agency believes that the title of the article is ‘highly sensationalized” saying that it is “inaccurate, and misleading”.
DepEd clarified that Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte’s speech during the event, Peace Village on Monday morning, September 11, at SM Annex Ecoland, did not contain any references pertaining to rallies as the cause of the alleged decline in enrollment.
The agency emphasized that the falsification of the truth just for the audience to click on news should not be accepted. They request that appropriate adjustments should be made with haste to prevent misleading information from proliferating.
“Distortion of facts for click-bait purposes should not be tolerated. The Department demands for PhilStar and One News Ph to make necessary changes immediately to avoid spreading false statements,” DepEd said.
The statement added that a precise assessment of the number of enrollees is something that the agency cannot provide just yet because it is still in the process of encoding learners’ information to the Learners Information System (LIS). The encoding period is until October 30, 2023. By then DepEd will publish the overall number of registrants for the school year 2023 to 2024.
Meanwhile, based on the data provided by DepEd on their Facebook page, as of September 15, there are about 26,912,559 students registered under the LIS for the school year 2023-2024. Of the 26 million, the most number of registrants comes from the Calabarzon Region with 3,913,016 followed by Central Luzon with 2,956,658, then the National Capital Region with 2,779,389. The Alternative Learning System (ALS) recorded 330,578 students.
As of writing, PhilStar and One News Ph still did not change the title of the article. RGP