BY RHENJIE MARIE CALANTAS
ILOILO City – For school year 2023-2024, Western Visayas needs 14,206 additional classrooms, according to the Department of Education (DepEd) Region 6.
Dr. Leonerico E. Barredo, chief supervisor of DepEd- 6’s Education Support Services Division, said of the 21 schools division offices (SDO) in the region, only Guimaras SDO has enough classrooms for this school year.
Here is the breakdown of the number of needed classrooms for the 20 other SDOs:
* Aklan – 472
* Antique – 728
* Bacolod City – 334
* Bago City – 42
* Cadiz City – 80
* Capiz – 890
* Escalante City – 122
* Himamaylan City – 253
* Iloilo – 1,654
* Iloilo City – 77
* Kabankalan City – 283
* La Carlota City – 56
* Negros Occidental – 7,837
* Passi City – 88
* Roxas City – 311
* Sagay City – 133
* San Carlos City – 213
* Silay City – 84
* Sipalay City – 434
* Victorias City – 115
Barredo added that there are also 18,952 classrooms that needed minor repairs; 17,345 are up for major repairs; and 2,212 that needed reconstruction.
“The Department of Education is really working its best to address all this deficiencies… Although the Department of Education has the biggest part of the cake in the national budget but then again we still lack these facilities and we are working closely with the central office in addressing these concerns,” Barredo said.
DepEd-6 data further showed that the recent heavy rains brought by the southwest monsoon enhanced by Typhoon “Goring” had left 18 totally damaged and 540 partially damaged classrooms from 81 schools in the region./PN
