The Department of Education (DepEd) is considering technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), to tackle the persistent issue of classroom shortages in the Philippines, according to DepEd Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III.
During the House Committee on Appropriations’ discussions on DepEd’s proposed budget for 2024, Densing acknowledged the challenge posed by the country’s classroom backlog. He highlighted the exploration of technology and blended learning as alternative approaches to address this problem.
“While we are focusing on the infrastructure as a traditional way of addressing problems of the past as mentioned by the Vice President-Secretary, we’re also looking at technology, blended learning as another way of looking at addressing classroom shortage,” Densing told the appropriations panel.
“In fact, we are scheduled to meet with a technology, Microsoft technology to brief us on what they call AI on virtual classrooms,” he added.
Currently, the Philippines faces a shortage of 165,000 classrooms, with an additional 189,000 school buildings requiring repairs, as per DepEd’s data. To maximize available land, DepEd’s strategy is to construct multi-story buildings, ranging from five to 12 stories tall, instead of one-story classrooms.
For the coming year, DepEd has allocated a budget of P19.6 billion to construct 7,879 new classrooms.
