The Department of Education in Western Visayas is in need of around 14,000 additional classrooms to keep up with the number of students in the region, as the 62,263 instructional classrooms in the region listed in the DepEd national school building inventory for school year 2022 to 2023 were insufficient to meet the current demands of the student population.
According to DepEd-6, the region has over 1.9 million learners for school year 2024-25, broken down to 119,964 pupils in kindergarten, 906,683 elementary students, 579,301 in junior high school, and 301,549 in senior high school.
Leonerico Barredo, chief of DepEd-6 Educational Support Services Division chief, revealed that 24,675 classrooms have been flagged for safety risks, including 11,365 needing major repairs and 11,551 requiring minor repairs. 1,443 classrooms have been considered unsafe and were recommended to be condemned, while 316 others had either been already condemned or are set for demolition.
As of September 2024, the region is in need of 14,178 additional classrooms, where the DepEd division of Negros Occidental would need more than half the number at 7,837, followed by Iloilo, which would need 1,600 classrooms.
DepEd-6 Director Ramir Uytico said they have repeatedly raised the urgency of addressing the classroom shortage with Congress during budget hearings. Other issues that delay efforts to build more school buildings are land ownership.
Fortunately, it was reported that in cities like Silay, land donations have allowed the DepEd to build additional school buildings, supported by funds from the city that were used for repairs and construction of school buildings.
The backlog of school buildings and facilities has been a perennial problem for the DepEd, with only a few points in our history that such backlog has been erased, only to be outpaced again as soon as officials change their priorities and let their guard down. If it is going to be ever addressed, it will need a leadership that is determined to sustainably solve the problem, along with ensuring that the buildings can at the very least keep up with the learner population that goes to the system.
If we are going to improve the quality of education in this country, this basic issue has to be addressed first.*
