PH Needs 7,000 Classrooms Every Year

The Philippines needs to build 7,000 new classrooms every year for the next 15 years to fix overcrowded schools and prepare for the future, according to experts from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).

In a podcast held at Centro Escolar University, experts said the government should make a long-term plan to solve the classroom shortage.

“If education is really important to us, we should all work together to fix this,” said Dr. Michael Ralph Abrigo, a senior researcher at PIDS.

Big cities, bigger problems

Even though fewer babies are being born in the country, overcrowding in schools is still a big problem in busy areas like Metro Manila, CALABARZON, Region 12, and BARMM.

In 2021, many students in Northern Manila were packed into classrooms with 50 or more classmates. The same problem was seen in parts of Rizal and Cavite.

More classrooms alone won’t solve it

Dr. Abrigo said that building classrooms is not enough. The Department of Education (DepEd) should focus on improving the quality of education.

He suggested solutions like:

• Public-private partnerships (e.g. using vouchers for private schools)
• Flexible school schedules
• Sharing underused classrooms
• Giving more help to poor local governments

He also said there should be better planning when building classrooms, like choosing safe locations and building ahead of time before schools get crowded.

“It takes too long to build a classroom because of slow government processes,” Abrigo said.

Fewer kids, but still a big job

While fewer children are expected in the future due to lower birth rates, some areas like BARMM still have growing numbers of school-age children.

That’s why experts say the country still needs to invest in education, especially to take advantage of what’s called a “demographic dividend.”

This means the economy can grow if the country has more working-age people than children or elderly. But it will only happen if people are healthy, educated, and have jobs.

“We can’t just wait for this to happen. We need to invest in education and training our young people,” Abrigo said.