Govt fails to finish all classroom projects in Normin but Deped says it’s ‘92% ready’

By LITO RULONA
Correspondent

THE Department of Education (Deped) in Region 10 yesterday said the government is nearly fully prepared in terms of classrooms as public schools in the region open their doors to students on Monday.

Allan Farnazo, Deped director for northern Mindanao, said they are already “92 percent” ready.

Farnazo said 4,554 public schools across the region are now prepared to serve 121,908 students. Deped has 28,992 teachers in Region 10.

There are also 1,493 new teachers for senior high school. Of this, over 300 would focus on vocational and livelihood trainings.

“We expect a heavy turnout of enrollees on Monday,” Farnazo said.

He said the Deped expects the classroom construction projects across Region 10 to be completed soon.

Farnazo said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) which implements and supervises the construction projects wasn’t able to finish some projects on time.

“We need 1,747 classrooms for senior high school alone but DPWH has only finished 92 percent. I hope the eight percent won’t become an issue because we (Deped) did not implement the projects. The construction projects are the responsibility of the DPWH,” he said.

Farnazo said the DPWH started the classroom construction projects in 2014.

The only participation of the Deped is monitoring and approval of the program of works of the projects, he said.

“If there are variations and differences, Deped will not approve payment for the projects. The conduct of the bids and awards of the construction is with the DPWH,” he said.

But Farnazo attributed the unfinished projects that account for eight percent to the lack of contractors interested on building the classrooms. He said he based this on the report submitted by DPWH.

“There was a time when the contractors were the ones seeking projects. Now, there is a shortage of contractors interested on constructing classrooms,” he said.

The reason for this, according to Farnazo, is because there are numerous government projects like roads, bridges, health centers, and covered courts, among others, and the contractors’ hands are full.

Another reason, he said, is because some of the classroom projects are in the hinterlands and interior areas.

“Some of the classroom projects were also delayed because of strict requirements for construction projects like soil testing. It took us sometime to comply with the soil testing requirement especially for classroom projects that are foreign-funded. They also strict on the property requirements,” Farnazo explained.