Overcrowding grips schools in Mandaue

CEBU, Philippines – Despite recent efforts from both public and private sectors to build more school buildings, crowded classrooms remain to be a top concern in Mandaue City.

Adelain Luarez, acting chief of the School Governance Operations Division (SGOP) of Department of Education-Mandaue City Division, told The FREEMAN that the room-to-student ratio in the city for school year 2014-2015 was at 1:72, a far cry from the ideal 1:45.

"The ideal ratio should have been 1:15 -- just like in private schools -- so the classroom is not crowded and the teacher is not stressed out in handing a large class. But due to the lack of classrooms, DepEd is allowing a 1:45 ratio," Luarez said.

She, however, said many public schools fail to achieve the 1:45 benchmark.

"This is still not the situation in most public schools due to the ballooning of students. Some classes go beyond the desired number of students per room," she said.

Luarez said the lack of classrooms has also pushed teachers to hold classes just anywhere. Under such unconducive environments, she said it's easy for students to lose focus, hence becoming one of the factors why Mandaue City public school students are faring poorly in academic performance.

In Mandaue City last year, the achievement rate for Grade 6 pupils was 57.90 percent in Mathematics, 57.30 percent in Science, 55.50 percent in English, 66.49 percent in Hekasi and 62.85 percent in Filipino.

Luarez said the standard target for each learning area is 75 percent.

She said the underlying factors include the lack of classrooms that are conducive to learning, as well as the lack of support from parents.

She said learning should not only stop in schools.

"Di pwede i-blame tanan sa teachers. Partners man sad sa learning ang mga parents," she said.

On their part, she said, they hope to improve the students' performance by "closely monitoring" the teachers on their instructional methods and by doing regular assessment.

This year, Luarez said, the classroom-student ratio in Mandaue has eased down to 1:67. Still, she quickly said more effort is needed to build more rooms to accommodate students.

With DepEd creating SGOP, she said she hopes that the problem can now be addressed, especially since one of its main tasks is to build new rooms.

She said the city government has also been building additional classrooms to meet the increasing demand. (FREEMAN)