Managing population to solve lack of rooms

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippines must learn from Thailand which is now having a surplus of classrooms after it was able to successfully manage its population.

“More classrooms, more classes and the higher the quality of education we can provide our students,” said Education Secretary Jesli Lapus.

This was one of the best practices that Thailand shared to the 11 Southeast Asian education ministers who attended the 45th Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Council Conference last January 26 to 29 at the Shangri-la Mactan Resort and Spa.

Lapus said that Thailand and Philippines used to be similar in terms of economy and population. But when the latter implemented a population management “Yung economy nila sumipa, now they have excess classrooms which allowed them to have more classes,” Lapus said.

“Now if you will ask how they did it, condom. I’m not saying we should follow them, but we would like to share that this is how other countries solved some of their problems in education,” Lapus said.

“We (member countries) have common survival problems, mainly the utilization of scarce resources for various needs of education,” Lapus said.

Lapus said that population management is indeed another effective way to maximize all the available resources in improving the quality of education.

This, while the country is in the midst of a heated debate on whether to pass the controversial Reproductive Health Bill that is being opposed by the Catholic Church.

“With regards to population management, as of now, ‘di ‘yan naa-address directly ng DepEd because we are not independent on this. But we have submitted a draft of the manual on Adolescent Reproductive Health Education which is under review at the Presidential Values Formation Committee,” Lapus said. 

The manual is in preparation should House Bill 5043 be passed and signed into law.

Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador said that currently, reproductive health is still at the health and science side and part of their initiatives is providing reproductive health education to out-of-school youths and parents through the department’s Alternative Learning System.

Labrador clarified that the manual they submitted to the Presidential Values Formation Committee, does not touch on the promotion of artificial contraceptives but more on values formation.

Lapus however said that there are still alternative ways to solve the problems in shortage of classrooms. Other ways include tapping private sectors in constructing classrooms and have it rented to the government.

Through this, Lapus said that more classrooms will be produced and used within the same capital that the government is supposed to allot for the construction of one classroom.

“So building classrooms is like another way of investing. If private sectors can be enticed, we can have more classrooms to accommodate more students,” he said. — Jessica Ann R. Pareja/BRP   (FREEMAN NEWS)