Gov’t pledge to build more classrooms ‘insincere’ – Castro

CLASSROOM SHORTAGE | A classroom in Manila is divided into two classrooms to accommodate two separate classes. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro on Sunday maintained that building 2,201 classrooms in one year was too dismal a performance for the Department of Education (DepEd) to boast about.

Castro, the ACT Teachers party-list representative, said that DepEd should not be bragging about the construction of 2,201 classrooms when its own data shows a shortage of 165,000 classrooms in the country.

“It’s Dec. 31 already but they only built 2,201, not even half of the target they set. And they claim that as an accomplishment?” she said, noting that DepEd itself had set a target of constructing 5,000 to 6,000 classrooms in 2023.

Castro described as “insincere” promises made by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte to address the shortage in school infrastructure and facilities, saying, “they failed to demonstrate their firm resolve to cut down the classroom shortage significantly.”

“The gravity of the classroom crisis necessitates a more ambitious and long-term plan. Only through constructing 50,000 classrooms every year can we improve the learning conditions, and remove major roadblocks to education recovery,” she said.

Funding unclear

Castro noted that DepEd was able to build 100,936 classrooms from 2014 to 2016 in which budget allocations from 2014 to 2018 for classroom construction ranged from P39 billion to P109 billion yearly.

“It had been done and it can be done again if only the current administration were sincere in addressing the classroom crisis as well as the bigger learning crisis,” Castro said.

Of the 2,201 new classrooms built this year — or 1.38 percent of the total backlog of 159,000 classrooms nationwide — it was not clear whether they were funded by DepEd’s P15.6-billion budget allocation for the target construction of 6,379 classrooms in 2023, or by funds from previous fiscal years.

The Inquirer sought clarification from DepEd but it is yet to reply at press time.

But following the provisions of the 2023 General Appropriations Act, DepEd will have until Dec. 31, 2024, to finish the construction of its infrastructure projects and reach its target of 6,379 new classrooms using the P15.6-billion allocation.

In a Senate hearing in August 2023, Assistant Education Secretary Francis Bringas said there was a backlog of 159,000 classrooms nationwide, which would need a budget of around P397 billion.

For 2023, a total of P15.6 billion was allocated to DepEd for the construction of basic education facilities like school buildings, technical vocational laboratories, and water and sanitation facilities, among others.

Target: 6,379 classrooms

In a video uploaded on its official website on Dec. 20, DepEd said that 2,201 new classrooms and 45 last-mile schools were constructed while 1,274 classrooms were repaired in 2023.

DepEd’s target of 6,379 new classrooms for fiscal year 2023 was 81 percent higher than its previous goal of constructing 1,168 classrooms in 2022.

For 2024, DepEd was allocated P17 billion for the construction of new school buildings, slightly higher than last year’s budget of P15.6 billion.

In her Basic Education Report delivered in January 2023, Duterte said her department’s inventory counted a total of 327,851 school buildings in the country, but only 104,536 were in good condition.

“Due to various reasons, there are also 100,072 school buildings that need minor repairs; 89,252 require major repairs, and 21,727 are set for condemnation,” she said.