EDUCATION Secretary Sonny Angara said that the agency is focusing on building new school facilities, including classrooms, and enhancing digital services for both teachers and students.
“What we are pushing for now is to ramp up public-private partnerships. This means large-scale projects, such as 1,000 classrooms. We will open bids for 1,000 school buildings and offer these construction opportunities to the private sector,” Angara explained.
He also highlighted the Adopt-A-School Program as a potential model for such partnerships, suggesting that businesses and charitable organizations could benefit from tax deductions when donating to school buildings.
“Many may not be aware, but there’s a law that allows donors to deduct the value of donated school buildings from their taxable income,” Angara added.
“We hope that with the help of the community, we can spread awareness about this.”
Earlier, DepEd reported that the current classroom shortage exceeds 159,000, while only about 2,000 new classrooms are being built annually.
Despite a budget allocated to address the issue, the agency noted that only 40% of the funds had been utilized due to delays in the procurement process.