The Department of Education (DepEd) officially opened on Monday classes in public and private schools nationwide for the school year 2021 to 2022.

In her welcome speech, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said this year’s opening of classes is the second “in the time of Covid and a celebration of last school year’s success.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the DepEd created a learning continuity plan where essential learning competencies had to be reduced from over 15,000 to 5,000 and modules were developed.

Digital learning tools were developed as face-to-face classes remain suspended due to the threat of more transmissible coronavirus variants.

“We ended the School Year 2020-2021 in victory. Our tentative graduation figures indicated that 98.13 percent or 2,055,499 of 2,115,040 Grade 6 learners made it and our Grade 10 learners also did very well. 96.9 percent or 1,881,817 out of 1,940,578 completed their studies,” Briones said.

To date, 24,603,822 million learners have enrolled in private and public schools nationwide.

Based on the latest data from DepEd’s Learner Information System Quick Count, about 20,046,495 learners have enrolled and 4,557,327 registered early as of June 2.

Meanwhile, 198,297 learners have enrolled in the Alternative Learning System.

“Today, at school opening, we are encouraged by the enrollment turnout based on our LIS-quick count. The enrollment reports are still on a steady upward trend,” Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said.

Considering the reporting lag and several regions surpassing 100 percent of last year’s enrollment, Malaluan said there was an indication that not only learners from last year are continuing this year, but also some learners who opted to skip are coming back, Malaluan added. (PNA)