Do school makeovers, Luistro asks donors

Education Secretary Armin Luistro: Tweaking the adopt-a-school program. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—When the rest of the school is in a shabby state, putting up just one or two new classrooms won’t do much to improve conditions.

For the next school year, Education Secretary Armin Luistro has asked major private donors to put their money into the makeover of existing classrooms in the public schools, aside from constructing a few showcase rooms.

“I’m tweaking the adopt-a-school program this year. I don’t want it to just build classrooms. It should now be a total makeover,” said Luistro, addressing real estate industry executives last week.

He said the current practice under the government’s adopt-a-school program was a “band-aid solution” since donations went to constructing one or two new classrooms while leaving the rest of the school in poor shape.

Luistro said the pupils ended up being envious of their peers who got to use the new rooms.

“That’s a band-aid solution. So we’re not in the retail business anymore,” he told the general membership meeting of the Society of Industrial-Residential-Commercial Realty Organizations.

“What will be more helpful is if you go to one school and check out the entire school, all the classrooms. See if you yourself can use the comfort rooms,” he said.

He said donors could help with repairs by augmenting a school’s maintenance budget so it could refurbish not only the classrooms but other facilities, including the electricity and water supplies.

“Don’t leave the school until it’s totally transformed. We can’t focus on all 47,000 (public elementary and high) schools [throughout the country],” he said.

Through the adopt-a-school law, the government encourages the private sector to assist the public education system by offering up to a 150-percent tax incentive for donations to government schools.—Dona Z. Pazzibugan