Press Release
March 26, 2007

Classroom lack to hit 8,450 units this year Recto
Despite P5.3 B for 11,673 new classrooms

Government will spend P5.37 billion to build 11,673 classrooms this year , but would still lack at least 8,450 classrooms at the end of the year due to a surge in public school enrolment, Sen. Ralph Recto said today .

Recto said the P1.126 trillion national budget for 2007 allocates P1.61 billion for schools experiencing severe classroom shortage, P1.76 billion under the regular school building program, and P2 billion for the replacement of classrooms destroyed by the four typhoons that hit Bicol , Visayas and Southern Tagalog last year.

The classrooms will be built at an average cost of P460,000 each, according to the Budget department, although classrooms built with private sector equity would cost less.

But Recto said a projected surge in public sector enrollment would cancel the increase in classroom inventory.

Student enrollment this school year stands at 17.845 million but is expected to increase by 800,000 or to 18.645 million in the 2007-2008 academic year , triggered in part by the migration of private high school students to free public secondary schools.

The 800,000 new enrollees would need 16,000 classrooms at 50 students per class or 8,000 classrooms if they would, however, attend class in two shifts, which is the norm in many DepEd-run schools today.

The 16,000 new rooms needed if added to the classroom backlog which stood at 4,123 units at the end of 2006 would mean that 20,123 units will be needed this year .

But with the planned construction of 11,673 classrooms , the shortage would be pruned down to 8,450 classrooms.

To wipe out this backlog, about P3.8 billion will be needed , which can be sourced out of revenue collections this year, Recto said.

Recto said actual classroom need may be bigger than what is acknowledged by the government .

Many schools have resorted to double or even multi shifting of classes. In some schools, there are morning, afternoon and evening sessions, he said.

Recto suspects that the governments data on classroom lack was premised on double shifts. The real shortage is reduced and the extent of the problem is masked if the formula used is two classes per classroom, when the ideal is one class per room.

This is compounded by the fact that the standard size of class that government has adopted is 50 when the ideal is a maximum of 40 pupils per class for conducive learning, he said.

Because of these, Recto asked the government to allocate more funds for classroom construction using as formula the 40 students per class size. Social payback must be felt in our schools and by our children, he said.

News Latest News Feed