Negros Oriental parents, teachers complain of lack of classrooms

Construction workers continue work on a school building at the Ong Chee Tee High School, which has been under construction since 2014, in Bacong town on June 13, 2018. Photo: Raffy Cabristante

DUMAGUETE CITY — The Department of Education (DepEd) in Negros Oriental has been the subject of several complaints from distraught teachers and parents due to the alleged lack of classrooms in the province, as the agency said that more than 500 of these are still unfinished.

Engineer Philip Tubog, head of the provincial DepEd’s Education Facilities Section, told GMA News Online that their main office in Manila has been made aware of the concern following a barrage of complaints made through the Office of the President’s 8888 hotline.

Representatives from the DepEd’s Manila office are expected to visit the province regularly to investigate the concern and to ensure that the classrooms will be finished as soon as possible.

According to a report signed by DepEd Negros Oriental Schools Division Superintendent Wilfreda Bongalos, some 149 of the 506 unfinished public classrooms and Technical Vocation and Livelihood (TVL) workshops in the province date back to as far as 2014. Four years on, these are still under construction.

Most of the unfinished classrooms and workshops started construction during the year 2016; 271 of these facilities are either still being made or have been abandoned. Another 86 started construction only last year.

Many of the yet unfinished classrooms and workshops are in schools located in the province’s first district, which spans from Canlaon City to Manjuyod town.

Tubog said that while the DepEd and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) are also partly to blame, private construction firms that serve as their contractors are a big factor in the construction delay.

Some of these contractors have told DepEd that the lack of roads to some schools in the province, especially those located in the hinterland areas, makes the building of these new classrooms a logistics nightmare.

“Naay mga nagkalain-laing rason. Naay mokalit rag biya tungod kay kulang ilang pondo. Dugay kakubra. Sa contractor gyud na [Private contractors have many reasons. Some of them abandon the project due to the lack of funds. Some of them take a long time to get their funds. It’s really with the contractor.],” he said.

Also part of the reason for the delays in the construction of classrooms is the reported lack of manpower at the DPWH, which is considered the sole agency that carries out such projects, Tubog added.

“Looy kaayo ang mga estudyante ani [We feel really story for the students],” Tubog said, adding that some schools have resorted to creating makeshift classrooms in order to accommodate the growing number of students.

He said that both DepEd and DPWH have conducted coordination meetings earlier this year to check on the situation of the unfinished classrooms. Officers of the DPWH have assured that they will in turn hold meetings with their private contractors to speed up the process.

GMA News Online visited Ong Chee Tee High School in Bacong town, where a new school building is still being constructed years after the project started in 2014.

The building is almost complete and some of the classrooms are already being used. However, students attending classes there would have to deal with the noise of construction equipment and workers potentially disturbing their lessons. — BM, GMA News