440 private schools to suspend operations this year

by Janvic Mateo (The Philippine Star), 26 Aug 2020

MANILA, Philippines — At least 440 private elementary and high schools across the country will suspend operations this school year due to low enrollment of students, according to the Department of Education (DepEd).

Data released by DepEd showed that 440 out of 14,435 private schools have notified them of the decision not to open for the academic year 2020-2021.

Most schools are in Region 3 with 88, followed by Region IV-A with 67, Metro Manila with 54 and Region VI with 48.

A total of 329 are elementary schools, 18 are purely junior high school and 30 are purely senior high school.

Forty-one of the schools offer kindergarten to Grade 10, seven are junior and senior high schools and 15 offer basic education programs.

Education Undersecretary Jesus Mateo said the primary reason for not opening is low enrollment, as well as the high cost of continuing operations under a blended learning setup.

Face-to-face classes have been suspended for the rest of the year due to the risks of the coronavirus.

This had prompted schools to adopt distance learning approaches, such as shifting to online or modular-based learning.

Latest data showed that only 1.8 million students have so far enrolled in private schools, representing only 41.75 percent of the more than four million private-school enrollment of students last year.

Almost 400,000 students from private schools have also transferred to public schools for the coming school year.

While the opening of classes in public schools has been rescheduled to Oct. 5, DepEd earlier said private schools will be allowed to start their school year on an earlier date.

Latest data showed that 1,394 private schools have started classes on Aug. 21 or earlier, while 6,449 are set to open before Oct. 5.

Mateo said they are continuing their programs to support private schools, including those that offer financial assistance to students and teachers, such as the Education Service Contracting, Teachers’ Salary Subsidy and the Senior High School Voucher Program.

Last month, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman J. Prospero de Vera III said they have also received notice from some private schools they would shut down due to low enrollment for the next school year.

“There are some schools that informed CHED they would close because their enrollment really went down,” De Vera said during the televised meeting with the President on July 15. “There are those that have already reported to CHED.”

De Vera said they are crafting a policy on school closures. CHED has yet to release the data on the number of private schools that have notified them of their plan to stop operations.

Computerization

Meanwhile, DepEd said there are over one million devices that are available for students and teachers in most schools nationwide.

During a press briefing last Monday, DepEd director for information and communication technology service Abram Abanil said devices are meant to support online learning and augment existing devices of teachers and learners.

Over the past years, he said 1,042,575 tablets, laptops and computer sets have been sent to 43,948 schools under the agency’s computerization program.

He said another 211,344 devices will be delivered to schools by the end of the year.

On capacity building for public school teachers, Abanil said they have trained over 385,000 on information and communication technology-based teaching.

He said they are also producing television-based training programs for teachers who have no access to internet as well as informing parents and students on the use of the learner management system that will be used by those who opt for online learning.

Aside from online-based education, schools will also adopt printed modules and broadcast platforms to deliver education content to students.