Published April 19, 2021, 12:03 AM
At a Senate hearing last year, the Department of Education (DepEd) reported that enrollment from kindergarten to senior high school for school year 2020-2021 was estimated at 23 million or 83 percent of the 27.7 million enrolled previously. When Senator Nancy Binay asked DepEd Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan if this meant there would be millions more out-of-school youth, the answer was, “Yes, Madam Senator.”
When we realize that millions of out-of-school youth are from homes in which family breadwinners have also lost their jobs, the serious repercussions of the convergence of a national health emergency, a severe economic recession and a crisis in education begin to emerge.