Department of Education(DepEd)

Good day! I would like to ask for the updated number of PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS (elementary and high school) preferably per cities and munipalities in the Philippines. This will be a great help for MSc thesis. Thank you.

Public Assistance Action Center FOI Receiving Office Dear Sir/Madaam, I am Jejomar U. Duque, masteral student of the University of San Carlos. Presently, I am working on my research entitled “Earthquake Assessment of Public School Buildings”. I would like to ask a copy of the number of PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS per CITIES and MUNICIPALITIES in the Philippines. This information is very useful in my study. The goal of my study is to develope an earthquake risk assessment tool for public school buildings. Wherein, the number of public school buildings is part of the theoritical background of my study. Moreover, the overview of my research is shown below: ABSTRACT: Public schools are strategically situated within the local community which is very apparent in the Philippines. Furthermore, schools are considered the center of lives of the local communities. In an emergency, school facilities are often used as evacuation centers in a community. Whereas schools are counted as a driver for economic development within the community and the entire country, due to age, intensive use, low maintenance and harsh environment, significant fraction of public school buildings are deteriorating in faster rate and are unsafe. The study of PETS-QSD and Figueroa et al concluded that schools in the Philippines are in awful condition, deteriorating and inappropriate for teachers and students. Imagine when earthquakes strike our school buildings that are deteriorating and unsafe because of poor planning, poor quality of construction, harsh environment and insufficient maintenance. Although, globally a lot of efforts are shown in sending our children to schools in order to meet the MDG target, however free access to education is not enough in disaster-prone areas. As observed from the previous earthquake events, the school buildings which are the avenue in educating our children, is also the cause of death of these children. The 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia caused the death of 25,000 people where 70% of them were students in their schools. This 21st century there are over 70,000 students including teachers lost their lives due to devastating earthquakes namely. Earthquakes are unpredictable, and in order to lessen the damages, one effective way is to reduce the basic risks. Disaster risk reduction encompasses, disaster mitigation, disaster management and disaster preparedness. Schools are proven to effective as focal institution within a community, thus schools need to be safe from lethal hazards like earthquakes inorder to save the lives of its occupants and assure the continuity of its functions. The trend of Philippines’ disaster risk management framework slowly shifted from reactive to proactive manner. Moreover, the Philippines made significant advancement in developing disaster early warning system and preparedness through new technologies and multimedia networking. However, significant efforts must be done on disaster risk assessment being the first priority of disaster risk reduction in accordance to Sendai Framework. Thus, considering that earthquakes are the most fatal disasters, seismic risk assessments of school buildings is urgently needed in order to ascertain proper disaster mitigation strategies. Thank you. Respecfully, Engr. Jejomar U. Duque

Good day, I want to follow up regarding my request on "Number of Public School Buildings in the Philippines". Thank you.