Commission on Audit lauds DepEd for 5,061 classrooms built, 4,040 repaired in 2010

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) has lauded the Department of Education (DepEd) for its accomplishments in 2010 including the construction of 5,061 classrooms nationwide.

State auditors said 4,040 classrooms were also repaired during the year under the leadership of Secretary Armin Luistro and his undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and directors.

In a report released only recently, COA noted that “in spite of a number of natural calamities and socio-political incidents, DepEd managed to deliver its commitments to provide quality education.”

Apart from building and repairing classrooms to address the need for critical resources, state auditors congratulated the agency for the drop of Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) in school year 2009-2010 for private and public elementary schools by 1.8 percent which implies that there were less underage or overage or repeaters among children from six to 11 years old in the enrolment list.

COA said DepEd also posted an increase of 3.89 percent and 1.64 percent in its Participation Rate in both private and public elementary and secondary schools while the National Achievement Test (NAT) mean percentage scores (MPS) for elementary increased by 1.7 percent.

DepEd was likewise cited for creating a total of 13,789 positions including 11,675 teaching positions for kindergarten, elementary, and secondary levels; 973 teaching related positions for Education Program Supervisor, Principal II, Head Teacher I, and Guidance Counselor I; and 1,141 non-teaching positions for Senior Bookkeeper, Disbursing Officer II, and Librarian I.

The agency even bought some 1.46 million chairs to add up to a total inventory of 15,960,353 school chairs and tables for school year 2010-2011 which students will definitely benefit from.

To strengthen elementary education, COA said DepEd exerts possible effort to ensure kindergarten education for five year olds through the Service Contracting Scheme wherein 40,321 preschool classes were subsidized serving the needs of over 1.4 million five year olds.

For high school, the audit report said the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) program had 691,099 beneficiaries, of which 599,200 are under the Education Service Contract (ESC) and 91,879 under the Education Voucher System (EVS). The grants totaled approximately P3.089 billion under ESC and P5.46 million under EVS.

And to expand access to basic education, Alternative Learning System (ALS) mobile teachers and district ALS coordinators are conducting learning sessions, serving an estimated 163,352 learners in 205 divisions nationwide while the DepEd procured or Unified ALS Contracting Scheme have served a total of 71,780 learners.