A PHILIPPINE senator on Sunday pushed for local government units (LGUs) to help fund building more classrooms with the national government as the country lacks 165,443 classrooms around the country.
In a statement, Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian proposed for LGUs to shoulder half the cost of each classroom while the national government takes care of the other half. He said the government needs about P413.6 billion to address the classroom shortage problem.
He said the “counterpart program” would pave the way for more classrooms to be built around the country.
“Due to the significant shortage of classrooms in our country and the substantial amount of funding required to address this gap, we need to find various ways to meet this challenge,” the senator, who heads the basic education committee, said in Filipino.
The Department of Budget and Management in April released P5.83 billion to help build classrooms nationwide, which covers 1,834 classrooms.
Last year, the Education department failed to meet its target of building 6,379 classrooms, having built only 3,600 classrooms.
“If we do not find creative ways to build classrooms, the shortages we face will only continue to grow,” Mr. Gatchalian said. —John Victor D. Ordoñez
