MORE BUILDINGS FOR SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE

LORNA T. LATIGAR

The Department of Education (DepEd) assured that public schools nationwide will continue to have additional classrooms amid the decrease in the allocation for new classrooms in the proposed budget for 2019.

As part of its commitment to catch up in providing more basic education inputs, DepEd is set to deliver 81,630 classrooms, which are currently in various stages of implementation, until the end of December 2019.

In its original 2019 budget proposal, DepEd allocated 47,000 new classrooms as part of its Basic Education Facilities program. However, the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) National Expenditure Program (NEP) reflected a significant reduction with 4,110 new classrooms instead.

According to the DepEd, 80,000 new classrooms will be built by the end of December 2019, which will come from the allocations and programs and projects that have started since 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Concerns arose when DepEd stated that the reduction in the proposed allocation for new classrooms may result in an average of 10 and a minimum of two classrooms to be allocated per district.

Of the 81,630 classrooms currently being delivered until the end of 2019, 60,149 classrooms are ongoing construction; 12,059 are under procurement; 7,052 are for procurement; and 2,369 have been constructed from July to August 2018. On top of these, 22,133 classrooms were constructed from July 2016 to June 2018.

According to Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis, the situation “gives breathing space to the Department” in responding to needs and expectations of the public. This will enable programs like the Basic Education Facilities to be “implementation-ready” come 2019.

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The author is Master Teacher I at San Luis National High School