BACK TO SCHOOL BLUES

Classrooms-lack bedevils Bohol

This is one scenario in Bohol where it is not pleasing to the ears of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Excited public school students and pupils in pressed and immaculate uniforms may find they may have no classrooms to stay as classes open tomorrow. The famous presidential temper burst last week after she was appraised by DepEd OIC Fe Hidalgo that a classroom shortage was in the offing as school opening comes around the corner. Asked by the President what kind of arithmetic she was using, the DepEd bureaucrat retorted that she was using the 1:45 ratio, meaning one classroom for 45 pupils. Thus, Hidalgo told the President point blank that a shortage of more than 6,000 classrooms will be felt during the opening of classes tomorrow. It appeared that this was not the formula the President wanted to hear. The chief executive's mathematical calculation was 1:100 on a two-shift basis. This means 1:50 pupils for the morning session and the same ratio for the afternoon classes per classroom.

The classroom lack is looming in Bohol as a local paper (not the Post) reported last week of the dire need for some 280 classrooms. Earlier, Bohol Division of the Department of Education (DepEd) reported the shortage was projected despite a relatively low turn-out of enrollees for Bohol and the Central Visayas in general. The shortage problem, which only gets the hype at the opening of classes may sound so desperate. But it may not be as alarming as it sounds, school authorities said. Education officials doing the physical inventory of classrooms counted only the classrooms built with DepEd specifications.

Those classrooms built by parent's organizations that do not meet DepEd standards are excluded in the count, explains Assistant Division Superintendent Norma S. Varquez in a phone interview Friday. The non-DepEd standard classrooms are still there for the students, though it may not be as ambient as those rooms built that are conducive to learning. Putting them in the list, lessens the shortage as projected with the number of enrollees for the class opening.

Even then, students and pupils coming in as the public schools open tomorrow June 5 may find that they are to temporarily settle their butts at the chapel, barangay hall or at empty houses near the schools. Worse comes to worst, the second highest DepEd official in the province said there may be real scenario of classes under the trees, but that should be very minimal and temporary. Temporarily, says Varquez, because the Division has still to bid the government construction of school buildings appropriated for the school year.

In addition, the problem of classroom shortage may be as defined in the public secondary schools as in the elementary, where the division has set a ratio of 1:45 students, education officials said. In the high school clusters, about 10 of them would get two-classrooms from the government and possibly another building from the principal-led classroom building projects, Varquez shared. With education a top rung priority of the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Administration, problems not only in terms of the classroom gap, but adequate quality books, nutrition, safe schools and the stable prices of school supplies are currently being addressed. But whether Bohol has been lucky enough to get the allocation it deserves, not anyone can tell. The President who breezes through Bohol tomorrow may arrive seeing the pitiful reality faced by children availing of the constitutional right to education.

The construction of more classrooms, the distribution of more books and giving internet digital access to schools have been the primary goals of President Arroyo's Education Program since 2001. The government has reportedly funded 3,000 new classrooms every year, the holding of double, morning and afternoon class sessions, and the distribution of vouchers to allow poor children to study in private high schools. These are meant to decongest classrooms. GMA has recently instructed the National Disaster Coordinating Council to ensure the safety of students through its disaster preparedness program. She also asked disaster officials to identify and repair school buildings with structural problems in coordination with the DPWH.

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