Gov't fasttracks school building program to spur economic activity

The Estrada administration is now fast-tracking its school building program for 22 poor provinces in the country to spur economic activity and ease the classrooms shortage in the said areas, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) said yesterday.

The school building program for the 22 poor provinces is the main component of the P16.9 billion Third Elementary Education Project (TEEP), which aims to build more than 9,000 new classrooms in the poor provinces that need educational investment most, according to Education Undersecretary Victor Andres Manhit.

Manhit said that for the year 2000, TEEP has set a target of 728 new classrooms plus the repaid and rehabilitation of 4,513 units of run-down and barely-usable rooms.

Manhit said a management plan, that covers engineering design of school rooms to speeding up the bidding process, has been designed by TEEP to fast-track the school construction work.

The 22 provinces, considered as among the "poorest of the poor" in the country include Ifugao and Benguet in Luzon, Eastern Samar and Antique in the Visayas and Surigao del Sur and Zamboanga del Sur in Mindanao.

Jesus Lorenzo Mateo, deputy TEEP project manager, siad that the infrastructure component of TEEP, also provides for the construction of new division offices in each of the 22 provinces. Recently, President Estrada inaugurated a P10.5 millioin new division office for the province of Antique, said Mateo. The funding of the school building program has been based on a cost-sharing formula, according to Mateo. TEEP school rooms get 25 percent of their funding from congressional funds or local government equity while the 75 percent is shared by national government and loans from the World Bank and Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.