MANILA (UPDATE) — Some 18.833 million students have enrolled in public and private schools for school year 2023-2024, the Department of Education (DepEd) said on Thursday.

The DepEd said it expects 28 million enrollees for the new school year, which for some private schools has already opened a few weeks ago and will kick off among public schools next week.

Enrollment in public schools began on Aug. 7, roughly 3 weeks before the Aug. 29 opening of classes.

Based on the data gathered from DepEd’s learning information system on the enrollees in public and private schools, as well as state universities and colleges (SUCs), Region IV-A or Calabarzon recorded the highest number of current enrollees with 3,114,341.

National Capital Region followed with 2,354,285 enrollees and Region III with 2,062,981.

The other regions have the following running total of enrollees so far.

Region VI – 1,526,802
Region VII – 1,404,062
Region V – 1,147,280
Region XI – 893,564
Region X – 851,759
Region I- 823,703
Region XII – 744,886
Region VIII – 719,147
Region II – 701,506
Region IX – 656,965
BARMM – 572,845
Region IV-B – 533,298
CARAGA – 478,002
CAR – 246,977
Philippine Schools Overseas – 1,541

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The DepEd is encouraging students and parents to enroll ahead of the opening of classes.

“We accommodate late enrollees although we don’t encourage them to be late para mas efficient ang class programming lalo na sa big schools,” DepEd Asec. Francis Bringas said in a message.

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