THE DEPARTMENT of Education announced that 22.69 million students have enrolled in public and private schools nationwide for the school year 2020-2021.

Data from the department showed enrollees have reached 22,693,496 for kindergarten to Grade 12, including those in the Alternative Learning System (ALS) and non-graded learners with disabilities.

The figure is 81.65 percent of the total number of enrollment the previous school year, which reached 27.7 million.

The data also showed 21,184,570 learners or 93.85 percent of last school year’s enrollment are now enrolled in public schools, while 1,474,711 or 34.24 percent registered in private schools or 34.24 percent of the total number of students who enrolled in last year’s enrollment, have registered in private schools for the upcoming school year.

Based on the latest national enrollment data, there are 1,579,792 pupils enrolled in kindergarten; 11,103,340 in elementary; 7,141,356 junior high school (grades 7-10); 2,488,821 senior high school (grades 11 and 12); 59,815 non-graded learners with disabilities, and 320,272 alternative learning system.

The number of private school students who transferred to public schools stood at 380,768.

DepEd is still anticipating increase in enrollment figures as reports from the field continue to come in.

Schools will also accept late enrollees even beyond the enrollment period.