File photo shows students attending a flag-raising ceremony before singing the national anthem at a government school in Quezon City. (File photo from Agence France-Presse)
MANILA, Philippines — The Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) region and Metro Manila lead the list of areas with a shortage of public school classrooms, the Department of Education (DepEd) said on Wednesday.
Tara Rama, director III of DepEd’s Government Assistance and Subsidies Office, confirmed the matter during the hearing of the Senate panel on basic education.
“I would just like to share with you the top five regions with the highest public classroom shortages,” she said.
In her presentation, she pointed out that the following regions have the highest number of shortages from Kinder to Grade 12 levels:
- Calabarzon (Region 4A)
- Metro Manila / National Capital Region
- Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
- Central Luzon
- Central Visayas
“These classroom shortages are determined from existing classrooms with more than one shift,” Rama added.
The estimated total number of classroom shortages in the country is 165,444, Rama said.
Earlier, DepEd said around P105 billion yearly is needed to completely address the country’s classroom shortage by 2030.
“The universal value of the shortage is around P420 billion. If we want to address it in the next six years until 2030, we need a budget [of] P105 billion a year to be able to zero out all the backlogs, assuming a 12,000 new classroom requirement every year,” said Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III then.