25 million students enrolled

CEBU, Philippines —  The first week of classes for School Year (SY) 2023 to 2024 ended on Friday with 24.96 million students officially enrolled in elementary and high school.

Department of Education (DepEd) data showed that as of 9 a.m. Friday, 24,961,439 students were enrolled in public and private kindergarten, elementary, and high schools, as well as in Philippine schools overseas and under the Alternative Learning System (ALS).

The figure, though, remains below DepEd's projection of 28.8 million students for SY 2023 to 2024. The agency said schools continue to accept late enrollees.

A total of 28.4 million students were enrolled in public and private schools in SY 2022 to 2023.

Of all regions, Calabarzon (Region IV-A) tallied the most number of enrolled students at 3,692,857, followed by Central Luzon (Region III) at 2,773,588, and Metro Manila at 2,604,947.

Other regions that also have high enrolment turnout are Central Visayas (Region VII) with 1,931,034; Western Visayas (Region VI), 1,831,839; Bicol (Region V), 1,589,379 and Davao (Region XI), 1,276,904.

For the ALS program, 221,392 students signed up while Philippine schools overseas had 15,483 enrollees.

The DepEd has yet to announce a date for the last day of enrollment.

Undistributed text books, tablets

Meanwhile, the Commission on Audit (COA) called out the DepEd over undistributed and improperly stored textbooks and tablets intended for public school students.

In its 2022 annual audit report, the COA's audit team discovered that 961,508 pieces of textbooks, valued at P36.749 million, remained idle in the DepEd Regional Office (RO) V's warehouse, even if “delivery documents were already prepared.”

“These TXs (textbooks) for distribution to various schools in RO V were stored in a warehouse and remained undelivered for at least four months to one year, depriving the recipients of the benefits that could have been obtained from the use of the books,” the COA said.

Furthermore, it noted that the same warehouse lacked proper ventilation, as well as shelves and security cameras.

“Inside the DepEd Logistics warehouse, there are no close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, no shelves or racks, but only some pallets (customized for the equipment or detached). Small ventilations are also located on the front walls,” read the audit report.

“Although the area was not flooded during the past rainy months, it is still prone to flood during stormy season, exposing the equipment and supplies to the risk of being wet,” it added.

The COA said the DepEd has already agreed to the audit recommendation for RO V to coordinate with Central Office (CO) to hasten the textbooks' delivery to the intended Schools Division Offices (SDOs), which shall handle the distribution to the students.

Also, in the same audit report, the COA said 112,706 module books worth P1.085 million and 1,349 android tablets (P15.986 million) remained undistributed by Lanao del Norte's SDO to the intended student-recipients.

The COA said the module books were delivered to the SDO of Lanao del Norte on November 15, 2022 while the tablets were delivered on November 28, but the items were just “placed in the lobby, hallway and open area of the agency.”

“These items were stocked in open spaces while waiting to be released to its recipient users, thus, exposing them to possible loss due to theft, fire hazards and other fortuitous events,” the COA said.

“Although there were security guards and CCTV camera in the area, the possibility of loss due to theft is evident considering that employees, visitors, guests and other people would come and go in the area,” it added.

The COA said the module books cater to five subjects – Filipino, English, Arts, Music, and Math.

In a reply, the Lanao del Norte SDO said it already started canvassing for a container van as storage. It also said it has a pending request for funds for “provision of storage facilities which will be implemented within the year 2023”.

“Documents requested for these funds were already submitted to the CO,” the Lanao Del Norte SDO said. /RHM