DepEd: No more classroom, teacher shortage next year

MANILA, Philippines – The perennial shortage of teachers, classrooms and textbooks in public schools will be wiped out next year, Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro said yesterday.

He told a House budget hearing that pursuant to President Aquino’s mandate, “gaps in resources” in public schools would be filled by 2013.

Luistro said the proposed P293.2-billion DepEd budget for next year includes more than P13 billion for the hiring of 61,510 new teachers and 3,500 non-teaching personnel.

He said the new teaching personnel would include more than 7,000 teachers who volunteered for the kindergarten program that was started this year.

Luistro said 17,939 classrooms would be built, along with 90,461 new water, toilet and sanitation facilities.

Some 31 million learning materials would be procured and distributed to public schools nationwide, he added.

He pointed out that the teacher hiring and classroom construction programed for 2013 would be sufficient for the requirements of the public school system.

Next year would be the first time in decades that the government would be closing the gaps in teachers, classrooms, chairs, and textbooks and other school materials, he stressed.

For this year, Luistro reported that DepEd’s “deliverables” include the building of 31,600 new classrooms and 14,367 new water, toilet and sanitation facilities.

He said the additional school buildings funded under his agency’s 2012 budget do not include 1,495 classrooms built out of the pork barrel funds of senators and congressmen, 886 units constructed by the Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. and 4,093 rooms put up by local government units.

As for teaching personnel, he said his department has already hired 12,661 new teachers and has requested the Department of Budget and Management for the recruitment of an additional 3,000.Q

Quoting the President, the DepEd chief said education is the key to opening opportunities for the people to extricate themselves from poverty.