MORE than 22 million students will return to school on Tuesday, the first day of School Year 2023-2024, the Department of Education said.

The DepEd said that based on its August 27 data, 22 million learners, out of the projected 28 million, have already enrolled. It added that the number of students this year will still increase as it expects late enrollees.

The agency said that 19 million of the total number of enrolled are from public schools while three million are from private schools.

Most enrollees came from Region IV-A or Calabarzon with 3.4 million, followed by Central Luzon with over 2.5 million. The National Capital Region ranked third with 2.4 million.

In an interview, DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Bingas said that everything is in place for the opening of classes.

“In general, I can say that it’s all systems go for the opening on August 29,” DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Bringas told CNN Philippines’ The Source.

When asked about the classroom shortage problem, Bringas said that the agency is proposing P10 billion to address the problem. He, however, clarified that the amount can only build 7,100 classrooms, which is not even half of the 159,000 needed to address the shortage.

He also said that DepEd is looking at institutionalizing blended learning to ensure that the education of the students will continue despite the backlog in building and repairing classrooms.