The Quezon City government will urge the Department of Education (DepEd) to build schools near the city’s boundaries with San Mateo , Montalban and Caloocan to solve the problem of congested classrooms and trim oversized classes.
QC Mayor Herbert M. Bautista directed Division of City Schools officer-In-charge Dr. Corazon Rubio to meet with DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro, League of Cities President, and Mayors of the two adjacent municipalities and Caloocan to discuss possible remedies on soaring number of enrollees of QC public schools, especially in Area 7, District II.
Congestion in QC public schools, Bautista believes, was due to the transfer of students from adjacent communities, especially those whose homes in San Mateo, Montlaban and Caloocan are very near Quezon City.
The QC Mayor said that he is amenable to the possibility of sharing funds from DepEd for school building construction in QC with San Mateo, Montalban and Caloocan, to help them meet the educational needs of their young constituents.
The young chief executive said that DepEd need not prioritize Quezon City in funding new schools, one basis of a big population because this will not solve the problem of overpopulated schools especially in Area 7 in District for as long there is a lack of new schools in a nearby areas outside QC.
“We need to make our stand clear that one of the causes of overpopulated schools in our city which adversely affects our city’s students is the volume of transferees from Caloocan, San Mateo and Montalban,” he said.
“We will bargain that instead of building schools for QC, DepEd might as well build them in San Mateo, Montalban and Caloocan so that their students will not enroll in the QC public schools, which is not good for their safety and security particularly in traveling,” the mayor said.
He added that QC government would like school children to be safe and secured, especially when travelling a distance from home to school.
At present, Bautista said that QC’s home learning program has been intensified to address the problem of oversized classes in QC’s public schools.
He said that the city government also intends to come up with a massive school building construction program to address the classroom shortage that may arise during the adoption of the K + 12 curriculum next year. -30- Maureen Quinones, PAISO
