SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian on Monday said that a recent Pulse Asia survey revealed that Filipinos want the Department of Education to immediately address the lack of classrooms.

The survey conducted from September 17-21, 2022, showed that 52 percent of respondents said that the shortage of classrooms should be the topmost priority of the Education department.

The challenge is more pronounced in Luzon and Mindanao, where 56 percent and 57 percent of respondents, respectively, felt that addressing the classroom shortage should be the top priority.

In the National Capital Region and Visayas, 44 percent of respondents said that the lack of classrooms should be on top of the agency’s concerns.

Gatchalian reiterated that the government should commit to meet the classroom requirement for all the country’s learners.

“Bagama’t prayoridad para sa karamihan ng ating mga kababayan ang sapat na mga classrooms, titiyakin naman natin na tutugunan din natin ang ibang mga kakulangang kinakaharap natin, lalo na pagdating sa kalidad ng edukasyon,” he said.

Based on the 2019 National School Building Inventory, there’s a shortage of 167,901 classrooms nationwide.

During last year’s deliberations on the 2023 national budget, Gatchalian said that around P420 billion is needed to address the classroom deficit.

The survey also said that more than 40 percent of respondents identified the lack of school learning materials like books and computers and the lack of teachers as the top concern that DepEd should immediately address.

Only 33 percent said that the DepEd should give priority to quality education, while 24 percent identified the lack of textbooks as a pressing concern.

Other issues such as drug testing of students, low pay of teachers, medium of instruction being used, errors in textbooks, and competence of teachers were also mentioned by the respondents that need to be addressed.