School-Based Procurement Monitors: Friend or Foe?

By Riza Halili

School-based procurement monitors are community members who voluntarily monitor if education services, like school buildings and armchairs, constructed or delivered to the school are in accordance to set specifications and quality. They use DepEd specifications (Program of Works and Plans for school buildings and technical specifications for armchairs) in order to assess the completeness and overall quality of the services their children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews would be using everyday at their second home, the school.

But, why are they needed? Are they really necessary? Doesn’t DepEd have its own arm of engineers and staff as its monitoring and evaluation branch? Wouldn’t these school-based monitors just be stepping on the toes of DepEd authorities?

Bantay Eskuwela Ambassador

By Riza Halili

Going to Marahan, Davao City is just like taking a scenic road trip to Baguio with  a breathtaking view of the mountains, trees, and the clear blue sky. It took us almost two hours to reach the Marahan East Primary School from Davao City proper.  It was a school with only four classrooms and being a primary school, its levels ranged from kinder to Grade 6, with only a few students in each level.  It was here that we met Ms. Ann Velez, the high spirited and dedicated principal of the school.

As we’ve done in around 15 other schools before this one, we conducted the Bantay Eskuwela orientation on monitoring school armchairs and school buildings. Ms. Velez was so enthusiastic about the initiative and even participated in the armchair inspection activities herself.  After which, we bid our good-byes as we had to visit 3 more schools for the orientation.  Just as we were about to leave, Ms. Velez asked if she could ride with us  back to the city, and of course we didn’t mind.