ACT hits DPWH over unfinished classrooms

MANILA, Philippines — The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines yesterday criticized the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) after Education Secretary Sonny Angara disclosed that more than 1,000 classrooms turned over to the Department of Education (DepEd) were left unfinished, worsening the nationwide classroom shortage.

ACT chairman Vladimer Quetua decried the government’s failure to address the classroom crisis.

“It is maddening that thousands of classrooms were left unusable, aside from the thousands of damaged classrooms that have yet to be repaired while billions of pesos were wasted in the projects full of corruption like the flood control,” Quetua said.

Angara earlier revealed that the DepEd has launched an audit of classrooms built by the DPWH following reports of ghost and substandard flood control projects.

He stressed that the agency itself admits to a backlog of 165,000 classrooms, yet only about 4,000 are built each year, far too slow to keep pace with rising enrollment.

Quetua warned that overcrowding and multiple shifts in schools remain among the biggest barriers to improved learning outcomes.

“The direct effect is overcrowded classrooms and three shifts in schools. How can the quality of education improve if classrooms cannot be built?” he added.

He urged the government to address the crisis, which he said stems from its preference for pork-laden infrastructure projects over basic education.

“ACT demands the scrapping of pork barrel and confidential funds and the doubling of the education budget to cover classrooms, teachers, textbooks and education support staff,” said Quetua.