FAR-flung, or the so-called Last Mile, schools will now be prioritized by the Department of Education (DepEd).
Education Undersecretary Alain del Pascua said the “Last Mile” school project aims to capacitate education centers located in the farthest areas, or those that are hours away from the town centers and have less than four classrooms.
These schools will benefit from furniture, learning equipment, computers, textbooks and laboratories under the project.
“For the next three years, we will focus on schools far away from town centers and are usually multi–grade facilities which teach small communities,” Pascua said.
Pascua said there are about 8,000 “Last Mile” schools all over the country that need to be empowered and strengthened.
For the project, DepEd is working with the Department of Public Works and Highways to open access roads for the convenience of the students.
In the Cordillera region, bidding of school building projects usually fail with zero takers. This pushes the department to revert the project cost to the general fund.
Another factor compounding the problem is also the lack of manpower if and when school building projects see funding as skilled and non-skilled laborers are hard to come by in provinces.
Laborers prefer to work in urban areas, where the pay is higher.
DepEd records show that in 2014, there were 52 reverted classrooms, 36 ongoing projects and 638 completed against a target of 726.
In 2015, there were also 42 reverted classrooms, 31 ongoing projects and 478 completed compared to the 551 targeted for the region.
In 2016, there were 36 reverted projects, 223 that have yet to be started and only 21 completed against 558 ongoing out of a target of 838.