Education Secretary Sonny Angara on Tuesday said that delays in paperwork and project implementation by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have caused major setbacks in school building projects, resulting in only 22 out of 1,700 classrooms being completed so far this year.

In a radio interview, Angara explained that while the Department of Education (DepEd) holds the budget for classroom construction, the DPWH handles bidding and contracting, which has slowed down implementation.

“The budget is on us. We identify what school needs a classroom, then we will give it to the DPWH,” Angara said in Filipino.“DPWH conducts a bidding then contractors are the ones who construct the classrooms. We are persistently asking them because the document process are taking quite a while.”

The issue was revealed during Senate budget deliberations on Monday, where DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon expressed frustration over the slow progress. Senator Bam Aquino, chair of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, warned that at the current pace, the country could face a backlog of up to 200,000 classrooms by 2028.

To address the problem, Angara said the DepEd has proposed a new provision in the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) to allow local government units (LGUs) to directly use classroom construction funds.

“What we want is, this 2026, we gave a provision to the DBM to include it in the NEP or draft budget law that the DPWH should not be the only one who can build classrooms. We can give the funds to the LGU,” Angara said.

He added that first-class municipalities, provinces, and cities could help speed up classroom construction if empowered to manage funds locally.

Angara also said the department is exploring partnerships with the private sector under a proposed “Build-List-Plan-First” scheme, where private firms will finance, construct, and maintain classrooms for a 10-year period on an installment payment basis.

“Because for 10 years, it was listed and constructed by the private sector, they would bid, then it would be 10 years to pay, like installment. For 10 years, the private sector would also maintain that building,” Angara explained.

The education chief added that the government aims to begin construction of at least 100,000 classrooms before 2028 through improved coordination and alternative funding models.