FOUR IN every five Filipinos of school age — five to 24 years old — were enrolled in 2022, data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Monday revealed.
More specifically, 81.4% or 42.185 million Filipinos in that age bracket attended school with 40.8% being male and 40.5%, female. However, 18.6% of the population in the age group or 7.85 million children and youth were not enrolled in the same year.
Sharing his opinion of this data, Sonny A. Africa, executive director of think tank Ibon Foundation, said in a Viber message: “This is very likely due to a combination of families not able to afford schooling or children having to work to support their family’s income.”
But the PSA report, released by National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Claire Dennis S. Mapa, reflected a decline in forced labor among the youth by 21.9% year on year as the number of them dropped to 5.97 million in July from the previous year’s 7.48 million.
On the other hand, the PSA cited the following reasons for those who did not attend school in 2022: completion of post-secondary or college degree (21.1% of the total population), employment (19.7%), lack of personal interest (12.6%), marriage (10.7%), and high cost of education or financial problem (9.9%).
“By sex disaggregation, a higher proportion of males than females were not attending school due to employment (25.9%) and lack of personal interest (17.9%). On the other hand, a higher proportion of females than males were not attending school due to the reason that they have already finished schooling (28.9%) or due to marriage (17.0%),” read the PSA report.
In Cagayan Valley, the PSA noted that marriage was the top reason for youth not attending school at 18.7%.
Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) had the largest number of children unenrolled in school due to the high cost of education at 23.2%.
By age group, students aged six to nine topped the percentage of children attending school at 9.41 million or 26.8% of the country’s five–24 years old demographic.
This was followed by those students aged 10 to 12 at 6.44 million or 18.4% and those aged 17 to 19 at 6.254 million or 15.1% of the total.
Of the 17 regions, Region 4-B (Mindoro provinces, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan or Mimaropa) had the biggest number of school attendees at 1.12 million students or 85.1% of its total population of children and youth, followed by Eastern Visayas (1.652 million or 84.8%) and Bicol (2.163 million or 84.4%).
Meanwhile, regions led by Zamboanga Peninsula had the lowest number of enrolled children at 1.17 million or 76.7% of its total population in 2022. It was followed by the BARMM at 1.50 million or 78.1% and Central Luzon at 3.66 million or 79.5%.
Mr. Africa said that low enrollment rates in Zamboanga Peninsula were mainly due to economic distress in the region.
“The government can immediately provide substantial and sustained ayuda (financial assistance) to give families the stability they need to send their children to school. Yet, if anything, the government is even cutting its social assistance budgets in 2024. This will just make it more difficult to keep children in school,” Mr. Africa commented. — Mariedel Irish U. Catilogo
