Students in Philippine schools overseas remain steady amid war

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) said the number of Filipino students in Philippine Schools Overseas (PSOs) is expected to remain steady amid the ongoing war in the Middle East.

“Our expected enrollees for School Year 2026-2027 are basically the same,” CFO Project Management Division (PMD) Chief Marita del Rosario-Apattad told BusinessWorld in an interview during a two-day media training held by the agency.

“For a while, other schools temporarily closed but when the alert level changed, they continued their operations because there’s still a market,” she added.

Despite the war, she noted that many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) choose to stay in the Middle East, along with their children.

“So, generally, when they see that it’s safe, they won’t let the children go home. They’d rather have them with them where they work,” she said.

“We’ve seen this in Libya before. Even if there’s a heightened alert, the parents would stay,” she added.

PSOs are duly registered educational institutions operating abroad and implementing the basic education curriculum of the Department of Education (DepEd). It allows overseas Filipino students to integrate smoothly into the Philippine education system when they return home.

“It’s basically, how you would operate schools here in the Philippines,” she said. “When they go back here, they can still enroll in universities and all of the places they want to go.”

The number of enrollees in PSOs is linked to the number of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) within the area. Of the 36 PSOs across 11 countries, the majority are within the Gulf region.

“PSOs are normally established in areas with high concentrations of workers,” Ms.Rosario-Apattad said. “As long as the parents are there, they want to keep the children with them.”

“In the Middle East, Filipinos often stay for a short term, they return so the children’s stay is also temporary,” she added.

The CFO earlier warned that DepEd did not accredit six Philippine schools in Dili, Timor-Leste.

“There are many reports to us that there is presence of other schools, but have not really sought authority to operate,” Ms. Rosario-Apattad said. “So, we reach out to them to legitimize their operations.”

“We have a significant number of Filipinos in Timor-Leste. I would assume there’s a market, given the presence,” she added.

About 25,000 Filipino students are currently enrolled across 36 PSOs in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Italy, among others. — Almira Louise S. Martinez