Mandaue City asks for P439M to solve overcrowded classrooms

THE Mandaue City Government is asking for a P439 million budget to help solve a major problem for local students: overcrowded classrooms. It hopes to use this money to build new, four-storey school buildings in several barangays where learning spaces are currently packed tight.

Speeding up school projects

Mayor Thadeo Jovito “Jonkie” Ouano said the requested funds would come from the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF). This special fund was recently launched at Malacañang by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The goal of the LGSF program, called “Sa Bagong Pilipinas, Bawat Bayan Makikinabang,” is to give money directly to local governments. This allows cities to build important projects much faster based on what their communities actually need.

“What the National Government did with this is to decentralize, so it is now easier to implement the construction of our classrooms here,” Ouano said in Cebuano.

Where the new classrooms will be

The City's priority list focuses on Barangays Paknaan, Tabok, Umapad, and Labogon. Ouano explained that the specific schools were chosen based on urgent recommendations from the Department of Education.

The biggest project planned from the P439 million budget is a massive four-story building with 60 classrooms for Paknaan National High School. Paknaan Elementary School is also set to receive a 32-classroom building, while Labogon Elementary School will get 16 new classrooms.

Other local schools will also get much-needed space. Canduman National High School and Tabok National High School will each get 12 classrooms. Meanwhile, Cabancalan National High School and Don Calixto Yongco Sr. Elementary School in Barangay Tawason will receive eight classrooms each.

Because of the urgent need for space, the National Government will release the funds directly to the local government to speed up the process. However, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will still handle the actual construction of these high-rise buildings because of their engineering expertise.

Adding more classrooms remains Mandaue City's top priority. Ouano recently met with Education Secretary Sonny Angara to push for another P700 million mid-rise building in Paknaan. Representative Emmarie Mabanag Ouano-Dizon is also actively following up on this massive project.

If these multi-million peso projects are approved and funded, they will finally give students in Mandaue City the space they need to learn comfortably. By reducing classroom congestion, the city hopes to provide a much better and brighter learning environment for thousands of young learners. / DPC