Department of Education Initiative to Raise Funds for Classrooms

SAN FRANCISCO, California—The Philippine Department of Education (DepEd)  has launched its campaign to tap private individuals to raise funding to build more classrooms and alleviate this one glaring and fundamental shortage in the country’s public school system.

Calling it TEN Moves, an acronym for “The Entire Nation Moves”, the department is targeting the construction of 10,000 additional classrooms from donations from individuals of P10 a day or P300 a month for 10 months for a total of P3,000.

The department is hoping to get this amount from two million individual donors, making a total of P6-billion, the amount needed to build the 10,000 classrooms at an estimated cost of P600,000 per classroom.

Assistant Education Secretary Tonito Umali is on a US barnstorming campaign to present the program to US based Filipinos and other concerned nationals.

He spoke at the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco Wednesday, September 28, outlining the serious problems education is facing in the Philippines, the most fundamental of which, he said, is the shortage of classrooms.

According to Umali, the Philippines needs to build an additional 68,000 classrooms to accommodate students into a 10-year basic schooling program from kindergarten to junior high school.

However, budget constraints provide for the construction of only 58,000, leaving a shortfall of 10,000 classrooms.

This initiative is one of the vehicles the private sector, through an umbrella group called the 57-75 Education Reform Movement, is using to respond to the government’s call for help.

Another campaign it has launched to help improve the state of the country’s educational system is the “Bayanihang Pampaaralan”, which aims to solicit the support of companies and donor agencies to raise the resources needed for the education of the country’s ever-increasing school-age children.

On the other hand, “TEN Moves”, while being a part of the bigger “Bayanihang Pampaaralan” program, is particularly aimed at individuals.

Cognizant of the current economic conditions, DepEd has specifically designed “TEN Moves” to soften the financial blow to the individual donor by allowing for affordable installments sent over time.

Anticipating questions about the potential for government misuse or misallocation of the funds, questions that did arise during the Q&A period of the evening, DepEd has partnered with the Ayala Foundation, Inc. (AFI) a private non-profit organization with an unsullied reputation, to manage the fund-raising campaign.

AFI will turn over all donations to the Philippine Business for Social Progress who, in behalf of the “57-75 Education Reform Movement”, will oversee the implementation of classroom construction. It is hoped that the construction of the 10,000 classrooms funded by this campaign will be completed by April 2013.

Umali also made it clear during his presentation and in answer to some questions, that funds raised through TEN Moves will be used exclusively for the brick-and-mortar construction of the classrooms. All other school needs such as blackboards, desks, and salaries for the teachers, will be provided by DepEd.

TEN Moves is part of the Bayanihang Pampaaralan campaign of the 57-75 Reform Movement, an alliance of the following organizations:

Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED),

Foundation for Worldwide People Power (FWWPP),

League of Corporate Foundations (LCF),

Philippine Business for Education (PBEd),

Philippine Business for Social Progress ((PBSP), and

Synergeia Foundation (Synergeia).

Donors outside the Philippines can send their donations via wire or telegraphic transfer. Philippine residents can make their donations at branches of Bank of the Philippine Islands, Banco de Oro, or Union Bank. They can also make their donations via credit card or even via text. For specific details and mechanics of how to donate or for more information on the campaign and how else to get involved, visit the one of the following websites: www.tenmoves.org or www.phildev.org. You can also call Roda Manalac at (63-2) 752-1061, or email [email protected]. Not yet available but under discussion is a link on www.inquirer.net.