THE Cebu City government allocated P22 million to build emergency exits in public school buildings that are three to four stories high to ensure that when occupants need to vacate the building in emergency situations, they have the means to do so.
Atty. Jose Daluz III, head of the Local School Board, said that several public elementary and high schools in the city like the Abellana National High School, City Central School, Guadalupe Elementary School and Lahug Elementary School do not have sufficient emergency exits which may prove risky to its occupants during emergencies and when there is a need for emergency evacuation.
City hall personnel have gone around inspecting different schools during the summer break to work on the establishment of emergency exits that would include the installation of steel stairways to augment existing stairways of school buildings.
However, work has not been completed because of the the limited number of paid Local School Board workers.
School board workers also focused on repairing school buildings and classrooms damaged by the last year’s Oct. 15 7.2-magnitude earthquake.
Daluz said that with classes opening on Monday, they would also tap the assistance of private contractors to hasten the establishment of the needed emergency exits.
“The mayor has always been reminding us to put up fire exits during the summer time pero wala gyud nato na kumpleto kay by administration ra man ang atong pag trabaho,” he said.
Mayor Michael Rama, he said, has identified at least three major problems that public schools are facing and which the city government, through the Local School Board, will have to address.
These are security concerns in schools, lack of fire exits, fences and comfort rooms.
The city, Daluz said, is prioritizing the establishment of fire exits using the P22-million surplus from prior years.
As this developed, the Department of Education (Dep Ed) is opening 200 plantilla positions for teachers in the city.
This would mean 200 out of the at least 400 city government paid teachers will be hired as regular employees of DepEd.
Daluz said that the city’s teaching personnel is enough to address the need of the city schools division for teachers.