The challenge of school site acquisition in public education
The perennial problems of our education system are all too familiar to narrate in detail. At the core is the dilemma of poor academic performance among students in basic education, which the World Bank aptly describes as “learning poverty,” especially among students in public schools. I need not dwell on that whole concept in this letter. Instead, I plan to discuss issues I have observed as a former teacher and as a school executive (superintendent) for 15 years.
A critical issue in school management, which I have realized too late, is the problem of school site acquisition and retention. Standard school site acquisition stands out as an important aspect, considering the prohibitive cost of real estate—a problem that will continue to hound public education. The question that comes to mind is, “How will the Department of Education ensure that a school site with a standard size can be provided throughout the education system? Does the government have a long-term plan for this?” I am positive that such is not on the drawing board of DepEd.
If I am not mistaken, there is no specific item allocation for school site procurement in the National Expenditure Program/General Appropriations Act. There is no specific enabling law to ensure that space is provided for schools in barangays as part of development planning, which is something strange to local government units that are hard put to prepare/design a comprehensive land use program, much more a holistic municipal development plan.
On the flip side of land acquisition or ownership is ensuring the continued, unimpeded use of the land schools are currently occupying, owing to troublesome claims of donors, heirs, encroachments on school sites by adjoining owners, use of school sites as rights-of-way, not to mention illegal construction of government and nongovernment structures inside the school property, a practice which has been tolerated for generations.
To be sure, most public school lands remain untitled; titling has not been made a priority by the DepEd and local schools due to cost restraints, not to mention issues on ownership. Some attempts at titling of school sites have been initiated by the DepEd Central Office. Documents had been submitted to concerned offices, but everything has been laid aside with every change of leadership. I recall that a joint agreement between the DepEd and relevant offices for the titling of school sites had been constituted, but no follow-through was made. Things have always returned to square one. People tend to react when the problem has become overwhelming. Our reactive mindset has defeated us on this responsibility.
For the longest time, school heads, except the assertively focused ones, have left the problem in gay abandon, a situation which will find us losing our school sites to scrupulous claimants, and holding the empty bag at the end of the day.
Epifanio Buela,
arch_tope@yahoo.com
