INTRODUCTION

The right of Filipino citizens to quality education at all levels is guaranteed under the 1987 Philippine Constitution. It is provided therein that the state shall take appropriate steps to make education accessible to all and to establish and maintain a system of free public education in the elementary and high school levels.

This mandate carries with it the responsibility of providing the different components of education such as school buildings, textbooks, armchairs, and teachers. For SY 2002-2003, there were 16,435,529 students in the elementary and secondary education enrolled in 36,301 and 5,394 elementary and secondary schools, respectively, nationwide.

In the Historical Inventory of classrooms prepared by the Department of Education (DepEd), the total classroom shortage for SY 2001-2002 for elementary and secondary education were reflected to be 8,040 and 27,946, respectively, or a total of 35,986 and is projected to increase to 44,716 by SY 2003-2004.

The shortage of classrooms is a long standing issue which is being raised every enrolment period. To ensure that substantial number of classrooms are built, the government is appropriating P2.0 Billion annually for the School Building Program (SBP). For this purpose, the government had devised an allocation system that is perceived to address equitable and fair allocation of resources. The allocation as defined under Section 4 of R.A. No. 7880, otherwise known as the "Fair and Equitable Access to Education Act", is shown below:

Under the Act, 90% of the Annual Appropriation will be released to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the implementation of the program while the 10% will be administered by the DepEd.

The budgets for CYs 2002 and 2003 were expected to produce 6,154 and 5,330 classrooms, respectively, for elementary and secondary schools considering an average cost of P325,000/classroom in CY 2002 and P375,000/classroom in CY 2003. These units were distributed to the 210 Legislative Districts in accordance with the above RA 7880 allocations as follows:

These allocations are not sufficient to eliminate the classroom shortage of both elementary and secondary schools of 35,986 for SY 2001-2002. The National Government is, however, not alone in this endeavor. The Local Government Units (LGUs) and a number of government and private entities are also constructing school buildings to help the National Government.

AUDIT OBJECTIVE

The audit was conducted to determine whether or not the implementation of the school building program has been effectively and economically managed giving consideration to:

• Allocation of Funds
• Selection of School Sites
• Utilization of School Buildings
• Cost Measures
• Project Administration

AUDIT SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY

The audit focused on the implementation of the school building program for elementary education covering allocation for SY 2002-2003. The agencies included in the audit are the DepEd and DPWH with ocular inspection on selected Division/District Offices within the National Capital Region (NCR) and Regional Offices Nos. VI and X, the Provincial Government of Bukidnon and the City Government of Iloilo.

The performance of the DepEd was assessed using the following criteria:

• Equitable Allocation of School Building Funds;
• Sound Identification/Selection of School Sites;
• Rational Utilization of School Buildings;
• Reasonable Cost Measures;
• Effective Quality Assurance;
• Valid, Complete and Reliable Data Collection and Analysis; and
• Responsive Project Administration.

To meet the audit objective, the team performed the following procedures:

• Reviewed existing policies and guidelines on the allocation of school building fund, identification/selection of school sites, utilization of school buildings, data collection and costings of school buildings;

• Reviewed existing reporting system to determine completeness, accuracy and validity of reported data;

• Interviewed personnel involved in the implementation of the program;

• Reviewed accomplishment reports and other relevant reports pertaining to the implementation of the program;

• Inspected selected schools and assessed the sufficiency of academic classrooms; and

• Determined if the actions taken by the different offices involved in the implementation of the SBP are coordinated.

The audit was conducted from July 7, 2003 to February 23, 2004 in compliance with COA MS/TS Office Order No. 2003-009 dated June 24, 2003 and TS Office Order No. 2003-068 dated October 17, 2003.

AUDIT CONCLUSION

Overall, the audit concluded that the implementation of the school building program was not effectively and economically managed. The implementation was affected by deficiencies in the process of implementation from allocation of resources to monitoring of contractor’s performance as discussed below:

• The DepEd is allocating SBP funds in accordance with the provisions of RA 7880 which requires that 50% of the fund be allocated to all legislative districts based on the student population. This is, however, no longer applicable under existing condition where a number of schools have already adequate or more than enough classrooms. Compliance with this provision then resulted in the allocation of classrooms even to schools without shortage or need for the same.

• The selection of sites was adversely affected by the absence of coordination among the agencies involved in the implementation of the program, deficiencies in data gathering, failure of the Division Offices to strictly comply with the selection criteria and absence of guidelines on effective utilization of classrooms. These deficiencies also contributed to the allocation of classrooms to schools no longer requiring additional classrooms at the expense of other unserved schools with large number of students which are then constrained to resort to multi-shift schedules and conducting classes in makeshift structures, school hallways and dilapidated classrooms.

• Schools with more than enough classrooms for academic purposes were utilizing about 20% to 65% of available classrooms for non-academic purposes. Moreover, despite existing needs for additional academic classrooms in a number of schools, the DepEd allows the construction of non-academic classrooms when construction for this purpose was not among the priorities included in the guidelines for selection of sites.

• There is no single standard design and costing for school buildings. Each implementing agency is adopting its own design and standards which is based on its cost allocation per unit. This practice led to a situation where school premises are crowded with different designs and structures which is no longer in conformity with the government’s policy of properly laying out school buildings in the school ground to achieve the most advantageous display. The absence of uniform designs and costs also hinders comparison and evaluation of the performance of the implementing agencies involved in the construction of school buildings.

• The School Principals were accepting unfinished school buildings from the DPWH which could not be used for academic purposes. Apparently, the DPWH contracted scope of works were not sufficient to complete the structures. This practice is not in consonance with the Joint DepEd – DPWH Memorandum which provides that cost constraint should not be used by the DPWH as ground for delivering unfinished classrooms. This may have been caused by the failure of the DPWH to prepare standard Program of Work (POW) for each plan. As such, individual POW is prepared for every project bid out using the same plan. These POWs, however, reflected different quantities and amounts for the same item of works. This condition then contributed to the delivery of unfinished structures.

Moreover, considering the limited government resources, the adoption of multi-storey buildings even in schools sites with ample space which proved to be costly compared with one-storey building is uneconomic. The cost allocated per classroom for this type of building is more than twice the cost of a one-storey classroom.

• The performance of the contractors was not properly monitored as manifested in classrooms with cracks in interior walls and flooring, of poor workmanship, and not complying with the desired specifications.

• Out of 2,971 classrooms for elementary schools programmed to be completed out of CY 2003 appropriation, only 68 classrooms were completed as of March 31, 2004 due to the slow paced performance of both the DepEd and DPWH. It took these agencies 344 to 450 days from January 1, 2003 to complete a project.

These lapses hinder the achievement of the government’s objective of providing adequate classrooms on time for each school thereby affecting the quality of education offered to students.

Considering the importance of school buildings in the delivery of quality education, the team recommended measures to address these concerns for consideration by the DepEd and other implementing agencies.

MANAGEMENT’S REACTION TO AUDIT OBSERVATIONS

The results of the audit were forwarded for comments to the Honorable Secretaries of DepEd and DPWH, the Governor of the Province of Bukidnon and the Mayor of Iloilo City under our letters all dated June 11, 2004. In their comments, DepEd Undersecretary Ramon C. Bacani, Governor Jose Ma. R. Zubiri, Jr. of Bukidnon, Mayor Jerry P. Treñas of Iloilo City and DPWH Undersecretary Antonio A. Inocentes acknowledged the existence of the problem and provided explanations on the circumstances surrounding these issues and the actions taken by their respective Offices relative thereto.

In general, they expressed concurrence on the team’s proposed recommendations. DPWH even recommended additional measures to the DepEd to address these issues.