DepEd taps ADB, World Bank to build 55,000 classrooms

The Department of Education will seek the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) in constructing at least 55,000 classrooms to help address the classroom backlog of 165,000, a DepEd official said yesterday.

- By BELLA CARIASO

In an interview over dzBB, DepEd Assistant Secretary for infrastructure Aurelio Paulo Bartolome said the ADB would help in the construction of 15,000 classrooms, while the WB would oversee the building of 40,000 under a public-private partnership (PPP) program.

He added that another package is being finalized for the construction of 50,000 more classrooms.

"If these will push through, we expect to build more than 100,000 classrooms in the next six years," Bartolome noted.

He explained that under the PPP scheme, private firms will finance the classroom construction and DepEd will pay them over a 10-year period.