LGUs eyed for school buildings

TO bridge the classroom gap in the provinces, the national government plans to enter into joint venture agreements with local government units (LGUs) for the purpose. Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio Abad told The Manlila Times that the national government would match every peso that an LGU would spend building classrooms in 2011.

“There is a serious discussion going on about this joint venture about DepEd and LGUs to accelerate the implementation of school building program,” Abad said.

Citing a meeting with the president of the League of Provinces of the Philippines Aurelio Umali who is also the governor of Nueva Ecija, Abad said that the LGUs can put up a school buildings in a span of just six months as against the Department of Education’s standard timetable of 18 to 24 months.

“So there are two purposes for the joint venture, first is the acceleration of the construction. The other one, the budget for building 13,000 classrooms can be extended to at least twice, well can we extend it possibly to twice because of the agreement of the LGUs to co-finance peso for peso,” Abad said.

He said a classroom costs P13,680, adding that this can be stretched by twice as LGUs are willing to a on- is-to one co-financing.

“They can significantly bring down that cost of P13,680. But the problem that needs to be addressed is the capacity of other provinces in engaging into this joint venture,” Abad said.

For next year, the DepEd’s proposed budget is P207.3 billion or P32.3 billion higher than this year’s P175 billion.

The government intends to build 18,169 classrooms in 2011. –KATRINA MENNEN A. VALDEZ REPORTER, Manila Times