ANGELES CITY – As public schools in this province’s first district with some classrooms packed with as much as 62 students and a shortage of 248 new classrooms and 192 more in dire need of repair, Congressman Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin is seeking help from local public and private sectors.
Lazatin said he has organized an education summit to be held this Thursday at Stotsenberg Hotel at Clark Freeport to solicit the support of various sectors to fill in the shortages as soon as possible.
This, even as he noted that in some public high schools in Magalang town, rooms accommodate more than 62 students each.
He said this Thursday’s summit would launch “Kabahagi Ako Sa Handog Silid Aralan Tugon sa Kaunlaran” or Kabahagi for the project.
Lazatin appointed his chief of staff IC Calaguas as project executive director. Calaguas said that to “jump start” the project, Lazatin committed some P25 million for it, while his sister Victoria Lazatin-Angeles and local businessman Dennis Uy committed to fund the building of one classroom each.
Under the project, classrooms funded by the private sector, whether an individual or a group, would be named after the donor.
Local governments and private sectors can pool funds for classroom construction or repair, Calaguas said.
Pampanga’s first district is comprised of this city and the towns of Mabalacat and Magalang.
“Existing funds are not enough to fill in the shortages,” Calaguas noted, as she cited that Lazatin only has P12 million from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), P50 million from the Angeles city school board, P7.49 million from local government funds for the needs in Mabalacat and only P1.99 million in Magalang.
Calaguas said Kabahagi project is the first of its kind, aimed to address classroom backlog under the public-private partnership thrust of the government.
“It will enhance teaching and learning instruction by reducing the ratio of local public school students per classroom,” she said.
Records from school boards in the first district have indicated that at the elementary level, each classroom is populated by an average of 44 .8 pupils in Angeles, 44.3 in Mabalacat, and 35.5 in Magalang.
At the high school level, average student population per classroom is 56.72 in Angeles, 56.9 in Mabalacat, and 62.23 in Magalang.
Lazatin cited the need to build 138 new classrooms in Angeles, 73 in Mabalacat, and 37 in Magalang, while 98 damaged classrooms in Angeles, 47 in Mabalacat, and another 47 in Magalang need immediate repair.
