The Department of Education (DepEd) was urged Thursday to address first the lack of classrooms, shortage of teachers, and erroneous books before adding two more years to basic education.

Aurora Sub-province Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara reminded Education Secretary Armin Luistro to prioritize correcting errors in instructional books for elementary as well as addressing the complaints of teachers before embarking on another plan.

"They should cover these inadequacies first like problematic books, shortage of classrooms, and the teacher-student ratio. They have to make sure we are ready before students take on another two years of studying," Angara said.

He added that DepEd should start re-tooling the country's school teachers to meet the instructional aptitude needed to teach an entirely new curriculum that will be provided under the planned 12-year basic education cycle.

“There might be a need to re-train our teachers and I hope whatever financial requirement for this re-training will be provided under the proposed 2011 General Appropriations Act,” Angara said.

For his part, Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles said that while expanding elementary education into a 12-year cycle is "ideal," the present educational conditions in the country's facilities and systems make the proposal "unrealistic."

The son of former Speaker Prospero Nograles said that DepEd's plan to strengthen the basic education in the country might only drive more youth to drop out of school given the standards of facilities in public schools.

"The government's present public school system does not have enough classrooms, teachers and well-equipped research and educational facilities which are required for the effective implementation of the DepEd proposal," Nograles said.

He noted that the country will need at least two years to address existing problems in DepEd before the 12-year basic education cycle can be implemented.

He clarified, however, that they agree with DepEd's observation that much of the country's unemployment woes are caused not only by the high rate of students who cannot go to college but mainly by their lack of skills and competencies.