With the announcement of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) extension of enrolment on public schools up to June 30, more enrollees are expected to catch up and beat the deadline.

In Parañaque, the city’s Schools Division projects an enrolment increase of 1.84 per cent in elementary and 4.09 per cent in high school or an estimated increment of 1,623 students for both levels.

Based on last year’s student population, some 76,978 had gone to 31 different public and high schools in the city and is now expected to reach 78,600 following DepEd’s recent announcement of enrolment extension.

The school returnees and fresh enrollees had been accommodated in some 569 classrooms in 21 elementary schools and 326 classrooms in 10 high schools located in a majority of the city’s 16 barangays, including the Parañaque Science High School (PNHS) which will be moving to its own building at Barangay Sto. Niño.

The biggest among these schools, and reputed to be one of the biggest in Asia in terms of annual student population, the PNHS had 11,380 students spread in two shifts.

Mayor Florencio Bernabe Jr. said that the school expects to grow by two per cent this year even as the city continued to accept enrollees.

Bernabe also said that the projected increase has been downgraded due to the accessibility to students of two new high school buildings in Barangays Sun Valley and Moonwalk and the expansion of other existing schools in the other barangays which he earlier initiated.

He also ordered city public schools to implement strict security measures for the safety and protection of their legitimate students. (James I. Catapusan)