VILLAR: 2007 BUDGET WILL ADDRESS SHORTAGE
OF TEACHERS AND CLASSROOMS AMONG OTHERS
Education prioritized in the national budget this year

Senate President Manny Villar says that the version of the P1.126-trillion 2007 national budget agreed upon by legislators during the bicameral conference still gives priority on easing, if not completely erasing, the classroom and teacher shortage in the countrys schools.

Villar cites The lack of classrooms or school buildings and teachers has been a perennial problem in our country. Year in year out when school opens, we get confronted with the same problem and we hear reports of students holding classes under trees or classrooms sardines-packed with excessive number of students,

We in the Senate, as much as we can or possible, try to ease this worsening problem by allocating adequate funds for the DepEd every year to address such shortage and in so doing improve the quality of our education system, adds Villar.

When the Senate passed its version of the budget last month, among the priorities has been allocation for education. Originally, the Senate was proposing for the realignment of around P6 billion in schoolchildren-feeding program to the construction of new school buildings and hiring of new teachersthis in fact caused the deadlock.

On the bicameral version, the senators compromised and agreed to realign instead P4.7 billion elementary school feeding fund under the Department of Education (DepEd) to the governments school building and pre-school feeding programs as well as the hiring of new teachers.

Of the said amount, P2.6 billion will be allocated to the school building program of the DepEd; P2 billion for the feeding program; and an additional budget of P873 million earmarked for the hiring of new teachers.

Based on figures from the DepEd website, instead of increasing, the number of teachers in elementary and secondary schools in the country is instead decreasingfrom 505,359 in the school year 1999-2000, it went down to 467,930 during the school year 2005-2006. With the budget for hiring new teachers, this is expected to improve.

Meanwhile, with allocation for new school buildings, over 17,600 new classrooms will be built, considerable lowering the classroom shortage which is estimated at around 20,000.

According to Villar, The first thing the senators will do when session resumes on Monday (Jan. 22) is to ratify the bicameral version of the 2007 national budget. We are positive that the budget will be signed, sealed and delivered before adjournment on February 10.