DepEd launches school-construction monitoring program

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Education and its partners launched Thursday a new program aimed at keeping a close watch over school construction projects across the country.

DepEd, the Ateneo School of Government, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and other non-governmental organizations came together for the roll-out  of “Bayanihang Eskwela,” a “community-based public-private monitoring system” that hopes to keep an eye on the construction of school facilities across the country to protect public funds from corruption.

“This will enable us to strengthen our accountability in delivering results,” said Francisco Varela, education undersecretary for finance and administration.

The program’s national rollout comes at a time when DepEd is to boost its classroom construction program, with some 11,000 classrooms expected to be built within the school year with a budget of P11.3 billion, Varela said.

He said DepEd has proposed a P12.4 billion budget for classroom construction next year as government aims to “close the backlog in the next two years.”  DepEd has to build some 60,000 classrooms nationwide to reach the ideal classroom-student ratio of 1 to 45.