Belmonte allots P43.7 million for textbooks

MANILA, Philippines - Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. yesterday announced that the city government is setting aside more than P40 million to buy textbooks for public schools.

Belmonte said the budget will be used to buy 424,860 textbooks in mathematics, science, health, English, Filipino and Araling Panlipunan.

“There is a continuing effort from the city government to achieve a student-book ratio of 1:1 in the city’s 47 public secondary and 98 elementary schools,” Belmonte said in a statement.

Belmonte directed the allotment of the P43.7-million for the purchase of textbooks as requested by the Division of City Schools in Quezon City.

City school officials said Quezon City has a total requirement of 153,677 mathematics books, 111,915 science and health books and 249,360 Filipino books for elementary schools.

Officials said public school students in elementary and high school are required to have two books each for Filipino, Wika and Pagbasa.

Division officials said their high school students need 6,142 books for English; 22,675 books for Sibika; 65,882 books for mathematics and 39,633 books for science.

All textbooks procured by the city government are based on the titles prescribed by the Department of Education, said Belmonte.

Quezon City hosts the biggest public school system in Metro Manila with 428,271 enrollees, including pre-school children in 98 elementary schools and 47 high schools.