Naga City lacks 121 classrooms

The opening of classes in the some public schools in Naga City went smoothly last week with only minor complaints coming from the students, parents and teachers reaching the division office especially on the shortage of classrooms.

Rodrigo Talan, the school coordinator for physical facilities division of the Department of Education, acknowledged that there is a lack of 121 classrooms in 46 public elementary and secondary schools.

Fifty-nine more classrooms are needed for the elementary and 62 classrooms for the secondary need to be built. There are 20 secondary schools and 26 elementary public schools in Naga City.

As of June 4, Talan said, there are 17, 676 elementary and 8,882 secondary students registered in public schools in Naga.

With the increase in the number of students enrolled and the shortage of classrooms, the division is taking steps to address the problem.

Talan said that the standard classroom-student ratio is one classroom for every 45 students as prescribed by Republic Act 7880 titled “An Act Providing for the Fair and Equitable Allocation of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports’ Budget for Capital Outlay.”

The prescribed classroom size for a classroom student ratio of 1:45 is about 7m x 7m for rural areas or 7m x 9m classroom for suburban areas. The 7m x 9m classroom shall also be the standard size for all public secondary schools, regardless of location and class size.

For 45 students, this classroom size is believed to provide an environment conducive for learning, where a teacher could interact freely with the students and exercise order and control.

But what the division is doing right now is accommodate 65 students in every one classroom.

Mayor Valdemar Chiong, in a separate interview, said the city government is currently constructing 29 classrooms to help ease the congestion.

In his letter to City Schools Division Superintendent Caridad Labe, the mayor already asked a summarized report on the total number of teachers and students for elementary and high school, and the recommended ideal teacher- student classroom ratio.

“The figure will help us determine the exact number of additional locally-funded teachers needed for public schools in the whole City of Naga,” Choing said in his letter to Labe.

The school division also requested for additional 17 locally funded teachers to cope with the growing number of students enrolling at Naga Central Elementary School.

But Chiong wants a complete data on the number of teachers both in elementary and secondary per grade level, the updated population of elementary pupils and high school students per classroom and the teacher-student-classroom ratio.

“This is to give the City Government a first-hand perspective on the current situation of the Department of Education in the City of Naga,” Chiong added. —