Closure of small schools, layoff of teachers feared

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has expressed concern over the low enrollment figures in private schools, saying it could result in closure of small education institutions or massive layoff of workers.

Latest enrollment data released by the Department of Education (DepEd) showed that only 318,930 students have so far enrolled in private schools, representing only 7.6 percent of the 4.2 million private school students last

school year.

“If enrolment will continue at this rate, we may have less than a million learners in private schools for this school year,” ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio said, noting that the month-long enrollment period set by DepEd has already concluded its second week.

“(This) may mean thousands of school closures, especially small ones that are unable to continue operation due to the lack of sufficient funds from tuition and other miscellaneous fees. This in turn will lead to massive layoffs of education workers,” he added.

As of Friday morning, 10,467,272 students have already expressed their intent to enroll in the upcoming school year, which is expected to forego traditional face-to-face learning due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

More than 10.1 million of those who registered are in public schools.

The guidelines for the enrollment process issued by DepEd last month is generally for public schools, although some provisions – such as the July 7 deadline for data encoding to the learner information system – also covers private basic education institutions.

Registration data regularly released by the agency over the last two weeks also showed a breakdown in public and private schools.