NEARLY 23 million students in public and private schools and local and state universities and colleges have enrolled as of Tuesday, August 29, 2022, the Department of Education (Deped) said.
As of August 29, which was declared by Deped as the opening of classes for School Year 2023-2024 particularly in public schools, a total of 22,917,725 students have enrolled, lower than the 28 million enrollees in 2022.
Deped spokesperson Undersecretary Michael Poa said the number of enrollees is still expected to increase as there were late enrollees.
So far, Calabarzon has the most number of enrollees at 3,488,180 followed by Central Luzon with 2,626,684, and National Capital Region (NCR) at 2,497,178.
The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) has the least number of enrollees among all the regions with only 355,728 students followed by Caraga with 650,421.
Central Visayas has 1,724,728 enrollees.
Millions of students flocked their respective schools across the country during the opening of classes.
In areas affected by Typhoon Goring such as Ilocos, Cagayan, Oriental Mindoro, among others, the first day of classes were suspended.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has fielded over 32,000 personnel to ensure the peace and order during the opening of classes.
In several schools in Calumpit, despite the persistent flooding even when there is no rain, students along with their parents arrived early for the opening of classes.
Some of the students were being carried by their parents to avoid flooding while on their way to their classrooms.
School officials made necessary adjustments in order to accommodate their students as there were classrooms which cannot be used due to flooding.
Some of the students opted to wear their school uniforms upon arrival in their classrooms due to flooding.
In Taguig, the opening of classes in its newly acquired barangays, which were formerly part of Makati City went smoothly.
DepEd deputy spokesperson Francis Bringas said there were “no untoward incidents” recorded so far in four schools he visited in Embo barangays.
Earlier, the Embo schools were caught in between conflict amid ongoing disputes between the local government units of Makati and Taguig City.
Vladimer Queta, chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, expressed concern over the “terrible” concerns that hounded the first day of classes, for the second year of the resumption of face-to-face classes, especially the shortages in teachers and classrooms which resulted in congestion.
He said there were only about 800,000 teachers in the country.
The ideal teacher per student ratio is one is to 25 for kindergarten; one is to 32 for primary school; one is to 42 for junior high school; and one is to 45 for senior high school.
There were also shortages of chairs and tables in some schools.
The Deped said the country is currently lacking a total of 159,000 classrooms for the upcoming school year, from the 91,000 shortage last year.
DepEd’s standard classroom to student ratios are one is to 35 for primary school and one is to 40 for junior and senior high school.
It said P397 billion is needed to address the current classroom shortage.
Under the 2023 national budget, DepEd was given only P10 billion which could cover only the construction of more than 7,100 classrooms.(SunStar Philippines)