Old problem: More students, fewer classrooms, teachers

CEBU CITY – School enrollment in the city increased by about a thousand students this year, but there are not enough teachers and classrooms for them, the Department of Education (DepEd) reported.

Cebu City Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Bianito Dagatan said there were 175,063 enrollees from Kinder to Senior high school here this year. Less than a thousand enrollees were added to the student population in Cebu from last year’s 174,000 students.

Dagatan said Oplan Balik Eskwela contributed a great deal to the increase in enrollment. Many students went back to school because they were given a chance to study and work at the same time, thank to night classes, he said.

“The reality was that, we lack classrooms. But even if the government has enough budget for the construction of the new classrooms, we have no space, we don’t know where to build the classrooms,” Dagatan said.

Another major problem is the deployment of teachers. “We need to see to it that there is no imbalance in the deployment of the teachers in the 54 schools we have here in Cebu City,” Dagatan said.

Over 700 teachers are expected to be deployed this year in batches, he said.

“We already deployed 400 teachers and on June 14 we will deploy 250 teachers,” he added. (With reports from Larnie L. Bacalando/PIT Intern)