Sonny alarmed by growing number of out of school youth

Senator Sonny Angara said on Sunday there’s a need to pay more attention to the situation of out of school youth (OSY), particularly at this time when their numbers are growing due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education.

As chairman of the committee on youth, Angara noted that the increase in the number of OSY is a serious issue that could lead to bigger problems later on if left unchecked.

Based on data from the Department of Education (DepEd), close to four million students were not able to enroll for the current school year.

As of August 11, 2020, the DepEd noted that some 23 million have enrolled in both public and private schools, a significant reduction from the 27.7 million enrollees in 2019.

According to the DepEd, 2.75 million of the four million who did not enroll were private school students.

“We understand that the sharp drop in enrollment for the current school year was due to the restrictions on face-to-face education. We hope to see these figures improve once our schools start to open up again, albeit gradually,” Angara said.

“What worries me is that many of the children who were not able to enroll last year could end up missing even more time out of school or worse, drop out completely for one reason or another,” he added.

Based on 2017 Philippine Statistics Authority data, nine percent or 3.53 million of the estimated 39.2 Filipinos aged 6 to 24 years old were considered OSYs.

Of that number, 83.1 percent consist of individuals 16 to 24 years old, 11.2 percent were 12 to 15 years old, and 5.7 percent were 6 to 11 years old.

The PSA data indicated that the most common reasons among OSYs for not attending school were marriage or family matters, lack of personal interest, and high cost of education or financial
concerns.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)