ANGARA PROPOSES SOLUTION TO SCHOOL BUILDING SCARCITY

Senator Edgardo J. Angara urges his fellow legislators to shed light on the issue of scarcity in public school facilities and equipment.

"The shortage in the number of public school buildings and classrooms has been plaguing us for a long time. We need to construct a lot more to accommodate the steadily increasing number of enrollees each school year," he said.

To address this issue, Angara filed Senate Bill No. 2025 or the School Building Program act. This bill features special provisions such as the build-operate-transfer, rehabilitate-operate-transfer, and other contractual arrangements that will allow the use of both government and private funds to finance the construction of needed school buildings. The proposed program also provides for the monitoring and maintenance of existing educational facilities.

"We are still quite far from the ideal 1:30 classroom-to-student ratio. However, with this bill, we hope to reduce class sizes to a more manageable level to improve the quality of education in our public schools," said Angara, head of the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture.

An inter-agency committee would be created to handle the implementation of the program, with the DepEd secretary as chairperson and the heads of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), as members.

Senate Bill No. 2025, "An Act Establishing a Program for the Acquisition of School Sites and the Construction Maintenance, Rehabilitation, and Repair of School Buildings in The Public Elementary and Secondary Schools Nationwide, Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes", was filed by Angara early this 15th Congress. It is now pending in its committees after the First Reading.(