Over P600 billion set for DepEd on 2021 nat'l budget

Under the proposed P4.506-trillion national budget for 2021 that was submitted to the Congress, the Department of Education (DepEd) will get a P606.6 billion budget.

Photo credit: asiafoundation.org

During the “Handang Isip, Handa Bukas” virtual press briefing on Monday, in the presentation of DepEd Undersecretary for Finance Annalyn Sevilla, the education sector will get a huge portion of the budget with an allocation of P754 billion which is 8.8% higher than in 2020 which was pegged at P693 billion. 

DepEd’s P606.6 billion budget is also 9.54% higher than in 2020 which was P552.99 billion.

Some of the expected outputs for 2021 will be:

👉 10,000 new teaching positions. As of May 2020, there are 830,030 filled positions, there are also         10,000 allocated for this year, 244 of which are filled up.

👉 Under the agency’s voucher program next year, there will be: 

• 1,149,975 slots for Education Contracting Service Program
• 1,366,197 slots for private Senior High School 
• 51,416 slots for Non-DepEd Public SHS and 
• 89,300 slots for Joint Delivery Voucher Program for SHS Technical Vocational Livelihood Specializations.

(Voucher program aims to provide financial assistance in the form of vouchers for students.)

👉 For learning tools and equipment in 2021, there will be:

• 215,490 pieces of Technical Vocational and Livelihood equipment and 
• 7,730,038 pieces of Science and Mathematics Equipment.

👉 DepEd also targets to construct next year 5,174 classrooms

👉 Rehabilitate and repair 10,444

👉 Provide 38,917 sets of furniture and 

👉 Give electricity to 1,536 sites.

👉 Under the agency’s Computerization Program, it targets to provide 37,221 computer packages. According to Usec. Sevilla, it is one of the programs that got a significant increase at P4 billion. 

In coordination with the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), and other agencies, providing internet connection to schools, teachers and learners under Public Education Network is also a work in progress by the agency.

4.39 million textbooks and other instructional materials for 2021 is set to be produced by DepEd. Self-learning modules are under a different budget said Usec. Sevilla.