DepEd sees construction of 12,500 classrooms

Manila, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) sees the construction of around 12,500 classrooms this year and next year courtesy of the private sector.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro yesterday said that in their tally of the mounting pledges from private companies and entities who want to help the DepEd address the problem on classroom shortage, there will be 12,500 classrooms built this year and in 2012.

This figure is apart from those that the department will build out of its budget.

The DepEd has its Adopt-A-School program that calls for the construction of 10,000 classrooms around the country in two years.

This is participated in by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) and Philippine Business for Education (PBED).

“Our goal in all these initiatives is to encourage the corporations and private individuals, as well as the donor community and the local government units, to contribute to the classroom building initiative either through donations or the conduct of collaborative school building programs,” Luistro said.

Some of the private businesses that have already signed their commitment to the public school building construction program are Jollibee Foundation, SM Foundation, Coca Cola Foundation, Petron, Philamlife Foundation, and PLDT.

The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) has also come up with a proposal that seeks to construct over 200,000 classrooms from 2012 to 2013 employing out of-the-box solutions to the perennial problem of classroom shortage.

Among the schemes being recommended are rent-to-own or build-operate-transfer; optimum use of the special education fund generated by LGUs as loan collateral; and allocation of a portion of lawmakers’ pork barrel for classroom construction for at least two years.

Apart from the private sector partnerships, DepEd said that its move to forge a 50-50 classroom construction cost sharing with local governments was done to allow the department to build more classrooms from its limited budget.

Under the 50-50 counterparting scheme with LGUs, a total of 1,054 classrooms worth over P800 million have been committed for completion within the school year.

Based on DepEd figures, the number of classroom backlog runs up to 66,800 units based on student population for school year 2010-2011.

A recent agreement forged with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), will also bring in another 1,000 units of fully equipped classrooms due for turnover to DepEd in December 2012.

Based on its 2011 actual budget allocation of some P8 billion for classroom construction, DepEd can only build a maximum of 10,000 classrooms per year.