The proposal of the Department of Education to produce 15,000 classrooms by 2026 with the help of private sector partners is not adequate to resolve problems in the country’s education system, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said.

Instead, the country’s think tank revealed that the Philippine government must build 7,000 classrooms annually for the next 15 years to resolve severe backlogs and future-proof its education system.

The PIDS, in a statement on Wednesday, quoted PIDS Senior Research Fellow Dr. Michael Ralph Abrigo during a July 3 podcast, in his call for long-term, systemic solutions to the country’s decades-old classroom crisis.

Abrigo is the lead author of the study “Low Fertility, Ageing Buildings, and School Congestion in the Philippines,” commissioned by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

Abrigo stressed that infrastructure must be paired with bold, scalable reforms.

“DepEd is not in the business of constructing buildings. Their mission is improving education, and classrooms are just one part of that,” he said.

He cited public-private partnerships like education vouchers, which offer private school alternatives to help ease public school congestion, also citing recommendations of flexible scheduling and shared space agreements for underutilized classrooms.

Abrigo also called for greater national support for under-resourced LGUs, particularly those unable to utilize their Special Education Funds (SEF).

Effective reform, he added, requires transparent, data-driven planning and coordinated infrastructure deployment among government agencies.

“Currently, classroom construction procedures are lengthened by phased budgeting, site verification, bidding, and hazard assessment processes,” he stressed.

With this, Abrigo recommended a forward-looking master plan, updated regularly to identify locations with impending demand, ensuring classrooms are built ahead of enrollment surges.

Abrigo also highlighted that these plans must consider local nuances—especially in disaster-prone regions—to reduce delays and wasted resources.

Earlier, Education OIC-Undersecretary for Operations Malcolm Garma maintained that the government has its short-, medium-, and long-term solutions to address the shortage in classrooms in the country, pegged at 165,000.