Declining birth rates may potentially alleviate school overpopulation, yet the decline alone might not suffice to mitigate the issue entirely.
Headline: Filipino Women's Declining Fertility Rate Aids Classroom Congestion Relief
Low birth rates might just be the ticket to resolving classroom overcrowding issues across the Philippines. That's the gist of a study published by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) in 2025.
Citing data from the National Demographic and Health Survey (2022), the total fertility rate (TFR) for Filipino women aged 15 to 49 dropped like a rock - from a hefty 3.0 in 2013 to a more manageable 1.9 in 2022. In simple terms, this rate estimates the average number of children a woman will have.
The TFR needs to hit a sustainable 2.1 for population balance, so having at least two kids would allow the population to neither grow nor shrink. Unfortunately, schools in the Philippines are still suffering from high student-to-teacher ratios, with classrooms being twice as stuffed as their counterparts in developed countries.
K-12 schools across the archipelago are feeling the crunch, with Metro Manila and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) being among the most congested.
According to the PIDS report, public elementary school enrollment could drop to between 10.5 and 12.8 million by 2040, down from the current 18 million, while combined junior and senior high school enrollment is predicted to level off.
To address this classroom deficit, PIDS research suggests the government needs to construct between 6,000 to 8,000 new classrooms per year from now until 2040. At an estimated cost of around 3 million pesos per classroom, the investment requirement amounts to approximately 18 billion to 24 billion pesos annually. Fortunately, the government’s recent budget allocations for classroom construction align with this figure.
However, PIDS also stresses that effective planning is crucial. Planning delays have slowed down construction progress, and the study found that obstacles, particularly in the planning phase, often stem from a lack of cooperation among the main agencies involved - the Department of Education (DepEd), the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the Department of Economy Planning and Development (formerly National Economic and Development Authority).
Coordination among these agencies and the availability of skilled personnel are vital to tackling underlying issues and ensuring the drop in student population due to the changing fertility rate creates a window of opportunity for policymakers to ease classroom congestion.
Ty Javier, an Economics undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin, provides insights on this issue, having previously covered university and campaign finances, economic policy, and transit for The Daily Cardinal. To join the conversation about essential issues like these, download the our website Communities app for iOS, Android, or web, and dive into our chat rooms! Together, let's protect the facts and promote truth.
- The declining fertility rate among Filipino women, as indicated in the National Demographic and Health Survey (2022), could provide an opportunity for education-and-self-development and personal-growth, as it might lead to a decrease in classroom congestion.
- Effective career-development opportunities could be more readily available in a less congested educational environment, allowing students to benefit from improved learning conditions and skills-training programs.
- Policy-and-legislation changes and political intervention may be necessary to ensure the smooth execution of plans to construct new classrooms, as delays and a lack of cooperation among agencies can hamper efforts to address classroom congestion issues.
- General-news platforms, like the Communities app for iOS, Android, or web, play a crucial role in facilitating discussions about essential issues, such as education and population policy, and spreading awareness to protect facts and promote truth.
