President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte led separate school preparation activities on Tuesday as the Department of Education (DepEd) mobilized resources to get public schools ready for an estimated 28 million students returning to classes on 8 June.

The nationwide volunteer campaign, known as Brigada Eskwela, features a major operational shift this year.

The Marcos administration has deployed roughly 240,000 temporary workers from the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DoLE) emergency employment program called TUPAD to handle cleanup and repair tasks.

Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said the deployment aims to relieve parents and teachers of the labor burden required to fix dilapidated classrooms.

Marcos conducted a high-profile inspection at Kapitbahayan Elementary School in Navotas City, accompanied by Education Secretary Sonny Angara and Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian.

During the visit, the President highlighted a P26.12 million completed allocation that assisted 147 schools and supported 3,658 TUPAD workers, alongside a current phase providing P37.14 million for an additional 181 schools.

The administration is using this year’s school preparation drive to tackle a persistent literacy crisis and the push follows recent findings from the Second Congressional Commission on Education revealing that 87 percent of assessed Grade 11 students nationwide are not independent readers.

In Quezon City, Duterte led community volunteers and staff from the Office of the Vice President in repainting and cleaning classrooms at the Diosdado P. Macapagal Elementary School.

The campus serves nearly 4,000 students from urban poor communities in Barangay Tatalon. Duterte’s office also distributed maintenance kits to other nearby institutions and scheduled a similar cleanup drive for Wednesday in Tondo, Manila.

Despite the heavy deployment of state resources, teachers’ advocacy groups claim the financial reality on the ground remains difficult for educators.