BANAUE, Ifugao — The Department of Education (DepEd) hopes to finish the assessment of the integrity and safety of public schools in the country by the end of the year, an official said here on Friday.
“We already have a mapping. The baseline data gathering of all schools is ongoing,” DepEd Undersecretary for Administration Alain del Pascua said in an interview with the media.
The project, approved in 2017 and started this year, is being undertaken together with the national inventory of facilities.
“Both efforts would give us the correct, updated data on the situation, including information on the geo-hazard description in schools,” Pascua said.
He said once completed, they will plan how to improve the facilities that need fixing, as well as the preparation of the land, improving slope protection and strengthening the foundation, especially for schools in the Cordillera.
“In the Cordillera, most of the lands are on hazardous grounds due to the geographic location,” he said, adding that while they have yet to complete the data assessment of schools nationwide, it is given that many schools in the region are located in hazard zones due to the geography.
“We should relocate. If the hazard cannot be addressed engineering-wise,” especially if the engineering interventions to save the school are more costly, Pascua said.
He added that relocation is feasible with the help of the local government unit (LGU), which can find safer sites.
“We will plan. We will ask Congress to increase the site acquisition fund for 2020,” Pascua said.
Building more stable classrooms
Prior to 2016, Pascua said they saw the situation where the budget for school buildings applies the “one size fits all” rule as reason why a number of schools are unfinished, or if done, are not structurally stable due to the limited budget.
“When we came in, we saw that pricing issue,” and they came up with a revised guideline where the hauling fee, slope stability and the strengthening of the foundation of the building are given funds.
He said constructing one classroom in the lowlands cannot have the same amount as when it is built on the mountains, where hauling of materials is involved and there is a need to have stronger foundation, as they are on mountains, not to mention the need to make the slope stable, which at times triples the cost of that built on a flat land in low-lying areas.
“We have now solved the costing issue. This is an additional cost to the standard. The pricing now (of school buildings) is different for those built in the center of the town and those built in far-flung communities,” he added.
Aside from solving the issue on the cost of construction, the DepEd has come up with a solution to the lack of contractors to build in areas where there is a peace and order problem.
Effective 2019, the DepEd’s new scheme in building will be implemented.
“The DepEd and DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) will enter a MOA (memorandum of agreement) with the LGUs to do the construction. If they also refuse, we bring in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) engineering brigade who will help us in building the classrooms,” Pascua said. (Liza Agoot/PNA)
