Education Secretary Leonor M. Briones on Tuesday said a big chunk of the P612.12-billion proposed budget for 2018 will go to the construction and maintenance of school facilities as part of its goal of providing quality education.
Briones also said the Department of Education (DepEd) has vowed to spend its budget to ensure that education is provided in an environment that is “inclusive and nurturing” for learners, teachers and other school personnel.
“Education must continue in an inclusive and nurturing environment. Amid and despite circumstances that render this impossible, we must be able to deliver quality education, especially when confronted with natural calamities or man-made disasters,” she said.
Currently, the DepEd serves around 27 million learners and anticipates almost 1.3 million senior high school (SHS) completers by the end of school year (SY) 2017-2018.
With a sustained growth in the national budget, from the approved P567.1 billion in 2017 to the proposed P612.12- billion National Expenditure Program (NEP) in 2018 (with Retirement and Life Insurance Premiums, or RLIP), the DepEd has set its sights on achieving the targets for basic education under the Philippine Development Plan (PDP).
The proposed 2018 budget would be used to expand the coverage of inclusive education programs and strengthening of partnerships and linkages; improvement of basic input rations, especially for Kindergarten to Grade 3; provision of basic resources to support the curriculum needs; and support rationalization plan.
A total of P126.03 billion was alloted for provision and maintenance of basic education facilities; P39.3 billion for government assistance and subsidies; P22.96 billion for operations of school; and P8.65 billion for the DepEd computerization program.
The DepEd will also spend P7.8 billion for the learning tools and equipment; P5.3 billion for school-based feeding program; P3.78 billion for human-resource development for personnel in schools and learning centers for nonbased personnel; P2.99 billion for learning and instructional materials; and the remaining amount is for Flexible Learning Option, Madrasah Education Program and Indigenous People Education Program.
The budget will continue to provide basic education resources to support the K to 12 Program and will be used to hire 81,100 teachers; 38.9 million total learning materials; construction of 46,998 new classrooms; 81,201 sets of school seats; electrification of 2,398 on-grid schools; construction of 24,076 workshops and laboratories; 22,046 ICT packages; 1,365 schools to receive Technical Vocational tools and equipment; 3,183 sets of
science and math equipment packages; and 2.5 million learner-beneficiaries of the school-based feeding program.
The proposed budget is expected to benefit 1,077,230 learners and 35,945 teachers under the Education Service Contracting; 78,250 students under the Voucher Program for Non-DepEd Public SHS and SUC/LUC; 1,577,722 students under the Voucher Program for Private SHS; and 115,996 students under the Joint Delivery Voucher for SHS.