165K classroom backlog unlikely to be resolved under Marcos' watch: DepEd

Clearing the 165,000-classroom backlog in the Department of Education (DepEd) will require building at least 55,000 classrooms annually over the next three years, which Secretary Sonny Angara said Wednesday is highly unrealistic.

Angara gave the estimate in response to Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano’s query on whether DepEd could address the shortage by 2028, before President Marcos Jr. steps down from office.

“It may start, but looking at the history of our school building program, we might struggle to ease it because it's only a matter of two and a half to three years,” Angara told Valeriano during DepEd’s 2026 budget briefing at the House committee on appropriations.

“So if we want to meet that, we have to build 55,000 classrooms a year, and that's never been done in our history, Your Honor… I don't know if we’re capable of that.”

With best effort, the most realistic estimate for classroom construction only ranges from 10,000 to 20,000 per year, according to Angara.

If DepEd succeeds in addressing the backlogs, Angara projected that the department will meet the ideal ratio of 1:25 for kinder to Grade 3 and 1:40-45 for junior and senior high schools.

Despite the classroom deficit, School Year 2025-2026 began on 16 June and will end on 31 March next year.

Senator Bam Aquino, chair of the Senate committee on basic education, estimated that it will take decades, or more than five presidencies, to clear the backlog if the government fails to give it proper attention.

Moreover, he projected that the real shortage might be even higher than DepEd’s reported 165,000.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address in late July, Marcos vowed that his administration would build 40,000 new classrooms, in partnership with the private sector, before his term ends in June 2028.

‘Mere trickle’

Compared to past administrations that were able to build around 10,000 classrooms or more annually, ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio lamented that the DepEd, under Marcos’ watch, is performing poorly.

He cited a report by the Commission on Audit showing that in 2023, the first full year of Marcos in office, only 192 out of the 6,739 classrooms were constructed.

Of the remaining, 4,391 classrooms were still under construction, while 550 had yet to undergo various stages of procurement.

The year 2023 covered Vice President Sara Duterte’s tenure as secretary.

“It seems like classroom construction has been deprioritized,” Tinio pointed out.

Angara, in response, attributed the delay to the Department of Public Works and Highways, which took over classroom construction from DepEd in 2017.

"There are also capacity issues with respect to the agency in charge of the construction, which is the DPWH. We saw that there's a lot of time consumed by that agency because they are also tasked to build bridges, roads, flood control projects, among others,” Angara explained.

The DPWH, which has been embroiled in corruption allegations involving the P545-billion flood control projects, is the second agency set to receive the largest share of the 2026 budget with P881.3 billion, next to the education sector with P1.224 trillion.

At least P928.5 billion is specifically earmarked for DepEd alone.

“So really, to fulfill the promise of the president, Public-Private Partnerships is one way. If we get that going, we would be able to build in the next five to ten years, a hundred five thousand classrooms,” Angara concluded.