More than 309,000 of the expected 430,000 learners in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) have already enrolled for the school year 2020-2021.

Georaloy Palao-ay of the Department of Education (DepEd)-CAR public affairs unit, said on Thursday said as of 11 p.m. of July 8, there were already 309,270 enrollees in the different public and private schools in the region.

Data shows there are 2,156 public and private schools catering to learners from kindergarten to senior high school.

Of the total enrollees, elementary had the most number with 160,522; followed by junior high school with 89,669; senior high school with 29,502; and kindergarten with 23,073.

There are also 412 learners with disabilities who have also enrolled and 6,092 for the alternative learning system.

Palao-ay said they are still waiting for about 110,000 learners to enroll until July 15.

He, however, clarified that the schools will still accept learners who will come after July 15.

“Our classes will still be on August 24, there is still a lot of time,” he said.

He said in public schools, teachers are collaborating with each other to connect with previous students, passing on contact information of the children or their guardian to the next level teachers.

“We will do our best to contact the previous students and the prospective students so that they can still ‘return to school’ even with the pandemic still here,” Palao-ay said.

The different school division offices and the individual schools are also collaborating with village officials to contact the residents that have learners from kinder to grade 12 who have not yet enrolled.

“We hope to bring all of them in school again. We intend to inform them of the blended learning system that will be implemented in the coming school year,” Palao-ay said.

The blended learning approach will be a combination of printed and digital; online learning; use of television and radio-based instructions and modular.

In earlier interviews, DepEd-CAR officials said the situation of each student will be taken into consideration in the learning system that will be applied. (PNA)