P1.9 million pledged for public school classrooms

CEBU, Philippines - In response to the appeal of the Department of Education, the local business community has generated funds to build more classrooms nationwide with an initial pledge of around P1.9 million.

Ayala Foundation Inc. Senior Director Mario Deriquitos said that the private sector has always been an active partner of the government towards the improvement of the quality of schools.

Evidence to such, he added, is the implementation of the campaign to help raise funds through Bayanihang Pampaaralan’s effort in consolidating all private sector organizations.

He said that The Entire Nation Moves (TEN Moves), as a retail fund-raising arm of Bayanihang Pampaaralan, is specifically designed to cater individual donors and ordinary citizens who can donate an average of P10 a day for ten months.

It aims to build 10,000 classrooms in public elementary and high schools in the country by school year 2013, enlisting two million Filipinos in and outside the country to contribute a total of P3,000 for the entire duration.

Ayala Foundation Inc. manages the retail funding fundraising campaign.

Manuel Gordon, president of the Ayala Business Club Cebu Inc., noted that Cebu has pledged P1,898,300 to boost the TEN Moves campaign through the donations of local corporations and organizations.

“Through TEN Moves, every Filipino can make a crucial investment in the educational future of Filipino children everywhere,” he stated.

The initial pledge, he cited, will be good enough to build three classrooms.

For the Visayas, DepEd has reported a shortage of 4,214 classrooms.

Philippine Business for Social Progress Executive Director Rafael Lopa, whose organization is responsible for the construction, noted that a total of 2,860 classrooms were already built and 140 undergoing construction.

The 10,000 classrooms envisioned to be built from the TEN Moves campaign will be constructed in the 40 most challenged school divisions out of 226 nationwide, specifically the poorest municipalities in the provincial level.

He said that if there is scarcity of land in the area, they have to strategically build taller school building which could be more expensive due to the construction of the staircases.

In January last year, DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro made an appeal to the private sector to help address the classroom backlog.

In response, the 57-75 Education Reform Movement, a movement to improve the national average on the National Achievement Test from 57 percent to 75 percent, led by the League of Corporate Foundations, a consortium of companies and conglomerates in the Philippines, and the PBSP, developed the Bayanihang Pampaaralan, which calls on the combined support of corporations, donor agencies and individuals.

As of July 2012, Bayanihang Pampaaralan, the mother campaign of TEN Moves, reported a total of 2,2741 classrooms donated and pledged of which 880 have already been built.

Meanwhile, DepEd Regional Director Dr. Carmelita Dulangon, said that Cebu is in need of more than 2,000 classrooms out of the 4,214 classroom shortage that DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro mentioned for the Visayas region.

She could not yet divulge a specific figure of needed classrooms since they still need to review the number of classes since Kinder, Grades I and II have half-day classes.

“The recomputation will consider the provision of classrooms for those schools that may not have space for new constructions. We will also consider high-rise buildings,” said Dulangon.     - THE FREEMAN