MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte — who is concurrently education secretary — identified classroom shortages as the most urgent education issue as two out of three school buildings are in disrepair, according to the Department of Education’s first-ever Basic Education Report on Monday.
"The lack of school infrastructure and resources to support the ideal teaching process is the most pressing issue pounding the Philippine basic education," said Duterte.
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According to data in DepEd’s BER, which laid down the agency's priorities and issues to resolve, only around 104,000 out of 328,000 education facilities (or one out of three) are still in good shape.
"The DepEd is not blind to the reality that there is a need to build and repair classrooms to accommodate the growing number of learners," Duterte added.
Duterte said that DepEd’s budget in 2023 will allow it to build around 6,000 classrooms. This is only about 6.5% of the 91,000 classroom shortage it projected in August.
Aside from the insufficient budget allocated for constructing new classrooms annually, Duterte said that recent typhoons have battered a number of schools with weak infrastructure.
For instance, at least 17,000 classrooms damaged by Supertyphoon Odette in 2021 still need to be repaired or replaced, which would require around P9.82 billion, Duterte said.
Overall, the agency still faces a backlog of around 190,000 school buildings that need minor to major repairs for various reasons, Duterte said.
"Our schools are not calamity-proof," she said.
Separate strand for school infra
To address the logistical difficulties in building more classrooms, Duterte said that DepEd has established a separate strand — or group within the department — for school infrastructure and facilities.
"This strand will be devoted entirely to addressing long-standing issues on educational facilities and infrastructure," Duterte said.
"We commit to closing the remaining gaps in school infrastructure with policies to eliminate corruption, and insulate the allocation of school building funds from politicization," she said.
Besides the construction of new classrooms, DepEd also vowed to establish library hubs in its division offices and provide schools with electricity.
Duterte said: "In the next five years, we will work towards providing electricity, especially in our last-mile schools."
DepEd’s latest data on electricity supply that 98% of schools have access to electricity, as of 2020. However, an estimated 14% of elementary schools in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are still off the grid.
Perennial problem
Over the years, limited school facilities have been a perennial pain for teachers and learners as the number of classrooms has failed to keep up with increasing enrollment in public schools.
For the school year 2022 - 2023, around 28 million students enrolled in public schools – nearly a million more than the 27.2 million that enrolled the previous year.
In September, Duterte ordered all schools to shift to face-to-face learning by November despite acknowledging the limited classrooms that can accommodate all students.
Nearly 47,400 out of 47,612 public schools or 99.5% are implementing in-person classes as of January, based on DepEd’s latest data.
Most Filipinos believe that the lack of classrooms is DepEd's most pressing problem, according to a Pulse Asia survey commissioned by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian
More than half or 52% of the 1,200 respondents said that the lack of classrooms should be immediately addressed by DepEd, followed by inadequate school materials and a lack of teachers.