Challenges on the Rise of Student Population

The lack of classrooms, school buildings and the dilapidated school facilities continue to be the major concerns that need to be addressed in  public elementary and high schools.

During the June 8 episode of Pagtuki, the official radio program of  Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI), Jeremy Denampo, administration  officer 5 of the Department of Education (DepEd)-Cebu Province, said  that the ideal classroom-pupil ratio is 1:45, however, there are  schools that go beyond the ideal.

DepEd-Cebu reported a two percent increase this year from an  estimated 687,000 enrolees for elementary and kindergarten and 357,000  for high school in the entire province of Cebu last year.

To address the increasing number of students in the province, DepEd  plans to build 213 surpassing last year’s 186 classrooms.

The need to rehabilitate and repair classrooms comes next to the lack  of them. This year, DepEd is allocating P20 million for school  rehabilitation in Cebu Province, P17 million of which is for  elementary and P3 million is for the secondary. Local government units  (LGUs) are also exerting efforts to provide adequate and conducive  learning environment.

“DepEd continues to tap LGUs to provide safe roads for the students  in going to school, especially in urban areas,” Denampo cited.

There are LGUs who partner with the private sector and civic organizations to provide better classrooms in the public schools. The  School Rehabilitation Program of RAFI’s Education Development Unit is  one example of an education program run by a non-government organization and its partner LGU and other stakeholders.

“Three months after repair, there is a significant impact both on  students and teachers. Teachers reported an improvement in class  performance and attendance,” Anton Dignadice, executive director of  RAFI Education Development Unit, said.

RAFI, through SRP, targets to construct 300 classrooms in the next  three years. It also aims to transform one-storey school buildings  into medium-rise school buildings.

“Due to the lack of buildable spaces, we try to maximize the space through these medium-rise buildings for high school,” Dignadice shared.

He assured the continuing support of RAFI to DepEd programs,  especially in its K-12 curriculum.

RAFI, in partnership with the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R), trains public school teachers of pupils from kindergarten to  Grade 3 on the usage of the mother tongue through the Certificate Program on Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE).

After having acquired the certificate program, the trained teachers  are expected to mentor other teachers handling the mentioned levels.

Pagtuki is aired over dyLA 909 AM every Saturday at 10-11am. The  program, which is one of the Knowledge Sharing & Advocacy capabilities  of RAFI, tackles timely and relevant issues on community development,  politics and governance, micro-financing, education, environment,  early childhood care and development, and culture and heritage that  affect the Cebuano community.

For more information about RAFI’s radio program, please contact  Carmel Matus at 418-7234 loc. 540, or visit www.rafi.org.ph or www.facebook.com/rafi.org.ph, or follow @rafiorgph on Twitter.