The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) failed to construct nearly 10,000 public school classrooms targeted by the Department of Education (DepEd) between 2021 and 2025, according to a report released by the Commission on Audit (CoA).

To recall, DepEd has long faced classroom shortages in public schools and to address this, the DepEd partnered with the DPWH, which partially took over the construction.

State auditors revealed that the DPWH completed only 4,817 classrooms out of a targeted 14,267 facilities under the Basic Education Facilities Fund — a completion rate of just 34 percent over the five-year period.

The audit highlighted a severe drop in construction progress in 2025, when the agency built only 99 out of 5,298 targeted classrooms, representing a two-percent completion rate for the year.

The DPWH completed 40 of 50 targeted classrooms in 2021 and met its full quota of 160 in 2022. However, performance declined in subsequent years, with 1,703 of 2,362 built in 2023, and 2,815 of 6,397 completed in 2024.

“Had both parties faithfully complied with the provisions of the MoA, the construction delays may have been significantly reduced,” CoA stated in its report. “The untimely execution of the construction resulted to increased construction cost and consequently deprived the general public of timely access to educational facilities.”

Auditors cited recurring site-related bottlenecks, including pending building permits, unresolved environmental clearances, right-of-way disputes, and design revisions.

CoA cited that these issues exposed the DPWH’s limited absorptive capacity, as 8,969 uncompleted classrooms were carried over from prior years.

The DPWH attributed the backlog to compressed validation timelines, ongoing procurement, delayed releases of Special Allotment Release Orders, and flood control issues.

The agency maintained that the remaining balance reflects implementation timing rather than abandoned projects, noting that a majority remain active in the operational pipeline.