MANILA – Improving the quality of education is one of the pressing challenges facing newly-appointed Education Secretary Sonny  Angara.

The results of the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that 15-year-old Filipino students lagged in math, science, reading and creative thinking compared to learners from other countries.

Angara recommended the creation of a  task force that would focus on improving the students' performance in the next PISA exam in 2025.

"We are also going to craft some PISA-type quizzes and examinations to give to our students periodically because we need to monitor their progress to see the interventions we are making… And hopefully we also have data to a more granular level, meaning at the student level, where we can really monitor who are adapting well to the new learning programs," he said during the post-SONA forum in Pasay City on July 24, 2024.

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DepEd is executing the MATATAG curriculum or the revisions made to decongest the learning competencies taught to Kindergarten to Grade 10 students.

Angara intends to add more changes in the classroom learning to put emphasis on reading and science.

"We are inserting a 30-minute reading period in between classes to strengthen the reading and comprehension skills of our students and we’re supplementing current initiatives like catch-up Fridays with the focus on science projects, because the coming 2025 PISA exam is gonna deal with science," he said.

CLASSROOM BACKLOGS 

This school year 2024-2025, the Department of Education (DepEd) expects that around 27.7 million learners will enroll in schools nationwide, higher than the 27.3 million recorded enrollees in the previous academic year.

As a consequence, Angara sees the problem of classroom backlogs worsening.

According to DepEd, classroom shortage stands at more than 159,000, with only over 2,000 new ones being constructed yearly.

Despite an approved budget to address the problem, only 40 percent of the allocated funds had been used due to delays in the procurement process, Angara said.

"Ang slow moving talaga diyan ay construction. Iyan nga, iyong preliminary activities. They tend to take time so nakita ko we need to shorten that period between the passage of the bugdet and tsaka iyong preliminary activities in constructing the classrooms," he said.

The recent damage caused by typhoon Carina and the habagat on schools added further to the problem.

DepEd estimates that around 12,866 schools from ten regions nationwide had been affected, with more than 800 schools postponing their opening of classes originally scheduled this Monday. 

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has said funds will be allocated to build new classrooms and repair the damaged ones.

"For 2024, we have P24.9 billion for the construction ng 9,897 classrooms. Para po sa national expenditure program for next year, mayroon po tayong P15 billion that is for 6,000 classrooms next year," DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said in a press conference.

"We have available P11 billion din po sa NDRRMF and then under the budget for this year also, mayroon tayo tinatawag na national insurance indemnity fund," she added.

DepEd is slowly reverting to the school calendar, where classes begin in June and end in March.

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Angara said his office was planning how to start building climate-resilient classrooms to prepare schools during typhoons and calamities.

"Iyong identification of vulnerable sites, kailangan bigyan ng atensyon. Pagaaralan ang resilient classrooms, palalakasin ang bubong, etc, so pagaaralan namin iyon," he told reporters.

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TEACHERS 

On teachers, the shortage is not as bad as classroom backlogs. Most public schools have a 1 is to 27 teacher-student ratio, Angara said. 

DepEd is pursuing a program for career progression of teachers by adding 140,000 teaching positions to facilitate promotion of teachers based on merit.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), on the other hand, said DepEd's numbers do not reflect the real situation in the schools.

"Ang binabanggit kasi na mahigit 140,000 ay dapat ngayon na iyan kasi ngayon palang 2024 to 2025 ay talagang siksikan na ang bawat klase. Sa katunayan sa ngayong year na ito, ang ineexpect ko na mga estudyante ay aabot ako sa 53 sa elementary," public school teacher and ACT spokesperson Roel Mape told ABS-CBN News.

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The DBM said funds would be allocated for the creation of new teaching positions.

"Sa 2024 po mayroon na po tayong P1.1 billion pesos, it is under the DepEd Budget and for next year po. We expect natin iyong full transition po ng ating implementation given the IRR that we signed today po, we have P6.1 billion under the DepEd budget for 2025 National Expenditure Program," Pangandaman said.

While DBM has placed in its proposed 2025 national budget all these allocations, Congress has to deliberate on every item once it begins its budget hearings.