According to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), the country needs to build 7,000 classrooms annually for 15 years to solve the classroom shortage issue and secure long term education access.
The study found that the country needed about 108,000 new classrooms in 2021, mostly for elementary school. The deficit remains most severe in the National Capital Region, Calabarazon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon), Central Luzon, and regional centers like Cebu and Davao del Sur.
It used fertility rate forecasts under different scenarios and estimated future demand based on projected school enrollment and the school-age population.
Despite recent gains in managing fertility and improving infrastructure, school overcrowding remains widespread in urban and high growth regions.
While declining birth rates may ease enrollment pressures in the coming decades, PIDS said it will not benefit all regions. In the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, where the school age population is projected to grow, demand for new classrooms will continue to rise.
The report also revealed that the majority of existing buildings are increasingly unsafe. As of 2023, around a quarter of concrete classrooms, half of wood-concrete hybrid rooms, and 80 percent of wooden structures had outlived their expected lifespan and will require replacement.
PIDS recommended a national master plan for classroom construction, updated regularly to anticipate future enrollment surges and regional needs. It also urged the government to consider alternative solutions, such as public-private education vouchers, shared classroom use, and flexible school schedules.
It added that demographic shifts, if managed wisely, offer an opportunity for long term growth. This goes beyond infrastructure, as with fewer dependents and a growing working age population, the Philippines could reap a “demographic dividend,” but only through serious investments in education, health care, and job creation.
That rare opportunity to leverage our population’s potential will go to waste if we cannot even build 7,000 new classrooms annually for 15 years. It may sound like a simple task for a government to get done, but after decades of seeing our education system still falling behind in so many aspects, not just infrastructure, it is something we will have to see to believe. Hopefully by now, our government officials already have a plan for next year’s batch of classrooms.*
