THE DEPARTMENT of Education expressed optimism that the number of enrollees for the incoming school year will still increase as late applicants will be accepted until the last week of September this year.

“DepEd is still anticipating increase in enrollment figures as reports from the field continue to come in,” the agency said in a statement.

“Schools will also accept late enrollees even beyond the enrollment period as stated in DepEd Order No. 003, Series of 2018,” the statement added.

Data from the DepEd showed that as of posting time, the number of enrollees for school year 2020-2021 has reached 22,100,369 nationwide for Kindergarten to Grade 12, including the Alternative Learning System and non-graded learners with disabilities.

DepEd said this is 79.52 percent of the total number of the enrollment in school year 2019-2020.

The data also showed that 20,762,702 learners or 91 percent of last school year’s enrollment has enrolled in public schools, while 1,306,804 or 13.3 percent of the total number of students who enrolled in last year’s enrollment has registered in private schools for the incoming school year.

Based on the latest national enrollment data, there are 1,528,548 pupils enrolled in kindergarten; 10,866,479 in elementary; 6,946,439 junior high school (grades 7-10); 2,404,403 senior high school (grades 11 and 12); and 57,708 non-graded learners with disabilities.

Initially, the enrollment period was scheduled from June 1 to 30, but due to low enrollment, it was extended until last July 15.

However, the number of enrollees is still low with 20.2 million students registered out of the 27.7 million expected students at the end of the enrollment period.