Classroom crisis worsens as aging schools, disasters widen the gap

National

BUILDING more classrooms may no longer be enough to solve the country’s education infrastructure crisis.

The Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) said the government must also replace aging facilities, recover from disaster losses and fix long-standing planning gaps.

During a Senate committee on basic education hearing, Edcom 2 said the Philippines continues to face a classroom backlog of more than 166,000 based on the Department of Education’s (DepEd) National School Building Inventory. The figure is higher than the department’s earlier estimate of a 144,000-classroom shortage.

The commission warned that the classroom deficit could increase further as thousands of existing school buildings approach the end of their usable life. By 2028, around 51,222 classrooms are expected to be more than 50 years old and may require condemnation.

Edcom 2 also cited a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies showing that 70 percent of public school buildings require major repairs, retrofitting or condemnation. Some facilities, it said, have become structurally unsafe after barely a decade due to construction defects or the use of substandard materials.

Natural disasters have added further pressure to the country’s already strained education infrastructure.

Edcom 2 reported that the October 2025 earthquake in Cebu damaged nearly 10,000 classrooms, while the magnitude 7.8 Sarangani earthquake that struck on the opening day of School Year 2026-2027 damaged another 12,493 classrooms across five regions and 39 school divisions.

“In less than one year alone, recent earthquakes have damaged more than 22,500 classrooms, further widening an already severe national classroom shortage,” Edcom 2 noted, as quoted by Philstar.

Apart from physical damage, the commission said the shortage is also being worsened by fragmented planning and unresolved governance issues.

Edcom 2 Executive Director Karol Mark Yee said 58 National Housing Authority housing projects nationwide were developed without planned school facilities, representing at least 167,120 completed housing units.(MyTVCebu)