The Department of Education (DepEd) on Tuesday admitted the slow pace of classroom construction in 2025, blaming the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) as the reason for the delays.
According to the DepEd in a statement, only 22 classrooms have so far been completed under the 2025 Basic Education Facilities Fund (BEFF).
‘DPWH’s heavy workload, late validation and costing submission, and leadership changes have caused delays,’ DepEd said.
DepEd then assured the public that the current delays are ‘temporary’ and that they remain ‘focused on catching up.’
The Department also said that it will push for flexibility in the 2026 budget so that projects may be implemented not only by DPWH but also by DepEd, local government units, partners such as the Armed Forces of the Philippines Engineering Brigades, and through Public-Private Partnerships.
This way, classroom construction will be faster as it would no longer be implemented solely by the DPWH.
‘We will also launch an online classroom dashboard for public tracking of classroom needs and construction progress and host a Classroom Summit on November 20 to strengthen collaboration and transparency,’ DepEd said.
DepEd said that from July 2022 to August 2025, 19,250 classrooms have been completed nationwide-reducing the backlog from about 165,443 to 146,193. /jpv