P25M for school construction remains intact

CEBU, Philippines - Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes yesterday announced there is still an available P25 million budget for public-private partnership intended for the construction of  more classrooms in the city's public schools.

Cortes made the announcement during the turnover of  45 classrooms and eight new school laboratories to nine public schools in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu Cities yesterday at the Mandaue City Comprehensive National High School, itself a recipient of 15 classrooms.

The mayor said he was thankful to the Aboitiz Foundation for supporting the education initiatives of  the city government.

Cortes said although Aboitiz has already turned over 102 classrooms in different schools in the city, more classrooms are still needed to be built, especially that the Subangdaku Technical-Vocational School in Barangay Subangdaku had already been served with a notice of demolition after it was badly hit by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake in October last year.

Cubacub National High School, among others, also needs additional classrooms as the population of the said school is also growing.

Now that more classrooms have been constructed, the mayor said he will be coordinating with DepEd-7 Regional Director Carmelita Dulangon on how to go on with the hiring of additional teachers.

In Mandaue City, the hiring of additional city-paid teachers is prohibited.

Cortes also said while the construction of other school buildings is ongoing, the students are left with no choice but to have their classes held in temporary classrooms. He said the city has purchased tents to be used as temporary classrooms.

Meanwhile, Keen Norway Marzado, assistant principal of  the MCCNHS, in a separate interview yesterday said at present, the ratio of students to classroom in their school is 1 to 65 and that their target is to reduce it to 1 is to 40.

For its part, DepEd has also allotted a budget for the construction of a three-storey, nine-classroom building beside the newly turned over building from Aboitiz inside MCCNHS.

Marzado said the problem of overcrowding in their school is not only a result of the calamities but also of the normal wear and tear of the classrooms as some of them are already 25 years old.

He said the turning over of classrooms was timely as it came at a time when DepEd Kto12 program in the country's educational system.  (FREEMAN)