DepEd allows rebuilding of schools using any available materials

CITING the aftermath of the Bohol earthquake as a lesson, Education Secretary Armin Luistro urged school officials in the Visayas where “supertyphoon Yolanda” leveled school buildings to use “any available materials” to put up makeshift classrooms so they could resume classes as soon as possible.

Luistro said the Department of Education’s experience in Bohol, which was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Oct. 15, showed that procuring 7 by 9-meter tents to serve as makeshift classrooms took too long, compounded by shipping problems that further delayed the resumption of classes.

Earlier, Luistro announced that the DepEd would use the P300 million that remained of its contingency fund to buy tents to temporarily replace earthquake-damaged classrooms.

“We ordered tents but the lesson learned in Bohol is that procurement and shipping take too long. So we need to use indigenous materials like nipa, coco lumber, whatever is on hand, in the meantime. They can use tarpaulins, sacks. As long as it has a roof and the children are not exposed to the elements, it will do,” he said.

While the areas devastated by Yolanda were still a wasteland, the DepEd urged school principals to reopen their schools as soon as possible to give traumatized pupils a semblance of a normal routine.

Luistro said the makeshift structures would serve as emergency classrooms for the rest of the school year given the massive rehabilitation required in the affected areas.

The DepEd said at least 3,200 classrooms were totally destroyed by the supertyphoon. “I’m sure the number will go up,” Luistro said, adding the figures did not include classrooms that need repair.

Luistro said there was also a plan to build temporary shelters for teachers who were rendered homeless.

“How can they teach when they have lost their homes? So we’re thinking of putting up makeshift bunkhouses near the schools. If worse comes to worst, we put up the bunkhouses in the makeshift schools. We cannot start classes while the teachers are not OK,” he said.