SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday commended the Department of Education for its aggressive “back to school advocacy” that resulted in a higher number of enrollees.

DepEd records showed that 28 million students enrolled for School Year 2021-2022, higher than the 26 million recorded in SY 2020-2021 and the 27 million for SY 2019-2020.

During the hearing of the Senate Basic Education committee, Gatchalian also noted the drop in the enrollment in private schools — from 3.3 million in 2020 to 1.9 million in 2021.

DepEd blamed it on the lag in the reporting of private schools.

“We note that the private schools lagged in their reporting of enrollment, so we are hoping we will see higher enrollment than what we have. There are a few private schools that have resumed operations but there were also other notifications of closure for this year,” Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said.

“This quick count does not give us the individual student profile and that is what will tell us by the data that will come by the end of October—how many of these were transferees from private to public, and vice versa,” he added.

The senator worried that the drop in enrollment may lead to the closure of some private schools and the displacement of teaching staff.