Old problems greet students, teachers anew this school year
By JELMER CABANZA
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – A public school teachers’ organization slammed the Marcos Jr. administration for the “chronic neglect” of the Philippine education system as the new school year started on June 16, Monday.
“We are once again entering another school year under an education system that is severely underfunded, resulting in overwhelming shortages and a continuous decline in quality,” Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines Chairperson Vladimer Quetua said in a statement.
He lamented that year after year, teachers are forced to shoulder many deficiencies in schools, from cleaning and repairs to providing for students’ needs.
“We bear the brunt of this systemic neglect, and today’s protest is our call for the government to finally carry the heavier burden it owes to Filipino learners and educators,” Quetua said in Filipino.
The group together with some parents staged a sunrise protest in Mendiola in Manila where they set up a makeshift classroom and cleaning supplies to depict how communities make way to fill gaps in the public education system.
Shortages
According to ACT, with the 165,000 shortage in classrooms, schools are forced to implement double–or triple–shift classes, hold sessions in makeshift classrooms and institutionalize blended learning, which they said, is undermining the quality of learning.
Read: ‘165,000 classroom shortage exposes years of government neglect’
While DepEd data showed a shortage of over 56,000 teachers, ACT estimated that around 150,000 are needed to reduce class sizes to the global standard of 35. They also cited the PSA’s 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) that estimated around 18 million basic education graduates are functionally illiterate.
“We have long argued that the gravity of education shortages necessitates a more ambitious and long-term plan. Two years ago, we demanded the national government to hire 25,000 new teachers yearly until 2028 to eradicate teacher shortage, and an additional 5,000 new teachers to cover the yearly increase in enrolment, which totals to a requirement of 30,000 new teachers yearly,” Quetua said.
He added, “We also urge the Marcos-Duterte administration to build 50,000 classrooms yearly until 2028 to eradicate classroom shortage. But these demands fell on deaf ears, dismissed as unrealistic and impossible, while millions were squandered on confidential and intelligence funds.:
Meanwhile, ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, alongside Representative-elect Antonio Tinio held “Bisita-Eskwela” where they visited some public schools in Metro Manila to personally investigate the conditions of the public education system on the first day of academic year 2025-2026.
The Bisita-Eskwela initiative consulted directly to the school administrator, teachers, staff, and students.
“We launched Bisita-Eskwela’ to see for ourselves the harsh realities our teachers and students face daily—realities that are often glossed over by the DepEd’s rosy reports. We need to expose the severe congestion, the lack of classrooms, and the exhausting shifting schedules that are the direct result of state neglect,” Castro said in a press release.
Castro and Tinio also criticized the Marcos Jr administration due to its reliance on “band-aid” solutions to the crisis in Philippine education saying that some measures “only worsen the already dire learning conditions in the country.”
“What the DepEd is doing to adapt—big classes, additional teaching loads, hybrid modes, and two or more shifts—is not enough. Instead, this is just worsening the learning outcomes of the students,” Castro asserted.
“This school year, we are facing a shortage of 165,000 classrooms and 56,050 teachers, yet the government refuses to address these urgent gaps. Our teachers’ salaries are not even enough for a decent living, and they are forced to handle at least 27.6 million enrollees this year,” she said.
Tinio said that the school visit was crucial for the findings to be used for their legislative work “to demand genuine solutions” that they will file in the 20th congress.
“We cannot rely on the administration’s sanitized data; we must ground our policies in the lived experiences of our school communities,” he added.
The “Bisita-Eskwela” initiative visited the Batasan Hills National High School, Melencio Elementary School, Caloocan Central Elementary School and San Francisco High School.
For this school year, DepEd said that around 27 million learners were expected to return to classrooms across around 48,000 public and 12,000 private schools. (AMU, DAA)
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