The Department of Education admitted Tuesday it will not be able to solve the classroom shortage problem even at the end of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s term.
Education officials earlier said the classroom shortage in public schools could be as high as 90,000.
This year, the DepEd targets to complete the construction of 6,379 new classrooms.
For next year, however, based on its proposed budget, DepEd has set a lower target of 1,628 completed new classrooms and 3,943 new classrooms that should be undergoing construction.
Meanwhile, some 16.8 million students nationwide have been enrolled so far a week before classes begin on August 29, the DepEd said.
Enrollees this year are expected to increase to around 28.8 million,
DepEd spokesperson Undersecretary Michael Poa earlier said.
This means some 12 million students have yet to enroll.
In the previous academic year, some 28.4 million students enrolled in public and private schools across the country.
The enrolment period for public schools will run until August 26.
As this developed, As of Aug. 21, a total of 16,816,221 students in both public and private schools have already enrolled.
Calabarzon recorded the most number of enrollees at 2,858,606, followed by the National Capital Region with 2,220,470, and Central Luzon with 1,868,161.
The Cordillera Administrative Region had the least number of enrollees at 196,884.