Add'l budget for construction of new school toilets sought
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus on Tuesday appealed to the lawmakers and the private sectors for additional budget needed for the construction of new toilets in every public school building.
Lapuz admitted that the construction of toilets was not prioritized since the government focused more on building additional classrooms nationwide to cope with the influx of students in the public sector this schoolyear.
"We prioritized the construction of classrooms because of damage brought by typhoons Milenyo and Reming particularly in the Bicol region," he noted.
He added those classrooms that double as evacuation centers have kitchen and toilet facilities.
Lapus, however, clarified that some schools have been given new toilets with the construction of new buildings.
He said the government is gradually addressing the toilet bowl problem though he did not say how many classrooms have one.
Earlier, DepEd said about 21.66 million elementary and secondary students of which 18.81 million or 87 percent are in the public sector while 2.85 million attended private schools.
He added as much as DepEd want to put toilet in every classroom, there are simply not enough budget for this.
DepEd has a P149 billion budget this schoolyear, upped from last year's P132 billion.
Lapus said that lawmakers can put to good use their "pork barrel" allocation to build toilets in public schools in their respective communities while the private sector can be tapped through the yearly "Brigada Eskwela" or the National Schools Maintenance Week.
Businessmen, he noted, can also lend their hand through the "Adopt-A-School" project to help fund the construction of toilets.
Lapus estimated that a regular-size toilet can cost P400,000 each.
He said they will prioritize addressing the problem in next year's budget, adding that they are already working on it before the department will present to Congress the proposed 2009-2010 school budget.
"We are already working on it not only on the funding for the toilets but also the sewerage system," Lapus said, adding that the DepEd is not turning its back on the problem.
This schoolyear, DepEd has built 10,472 additional classrooms on top of the 421,034 present inventory to ensure a classroom to student ratio of 1:45 from the previous 1:50. (PNA)