The Ministry of Education (DEPED) said on Tuesday that addressing the country’s educational dilemma, including the shortage of 165,000 classrooms, requires a multi-sector approach.
Education Minister Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara told reporters in the Philippines in an interview: “Education is not only the responsibility of schools or teachers.”
He added: “Even families, communities and barangays must be involved in nurturing and educating young people.”
On average, Mr. Angara said the department builds about 6,000 new classrooms each year.
“We will start building the most needed areas, usually cities in the 4A area,” Mr. Angara said in an interview to launch the DEPED Quality Basic Education Development Program (QBEDP).
“These areas are overpopular, which is why the double transfer is tripled,” he added.
In President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
To help build more classrooms nationwide and to teach children core Filipino values through books, a partnership between Deped, Jollibee and Adarna House was launched on Tuesday.
Under the partnership, each P5 purchased for “Children’s Value Meal” will be donated to the Jollibee Group Foundation’s classroom construction project, which aims to donate to the Joy Learning Center in various places across the country by 2028.
It is very important for Dorothy-Dee Ching, vice president of marketing at Jollibee, to share a shared vision in companies such as Jollibee, to help improve the next generation of Filipinos, and to be full of values. ”
“I think it’s a good partnership between public and private, so we can help our country move forward,” she added.
Doubling the effort
According to former secretary Armin B. Luistro, the government must establish at least 25,000 learning facilities each year to replace those damaged and unusable.
“Every year you need to build about 25,000 classrooms to replace 10 to 12-year-old classrooms,” he told BusinessWorld in an interview.
Mr Luistro said during his tenure as department head, they had to double their efforts to build classrooms to catch up with the backlog. “We built 84 classrooms a day over the course of six years.”
He added: “It’s not all. LGUS (local government departments) helps to include the private sector, and even Pagcor (Philippine Entertainment and Games Company) budgets are only awarded DEP for building classrooms.” – Almira Louise S. Martinez
