Teachers and parents help clean the classrooms of the Banawa Elementary School after a knee-deep flood inundated the school building in 2011. (CDN FILE PHOTO)
The Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu provincial schools division is eyeing a partnership with private stakeholders to equip students in the province for the rainy season.
Nenita Jaralve, DepEd Cebu division coordinator, said they would welcome nongovernment organizations who would want to donate materials for students’ emergency kits, which may come in handy especially with the onset of La Niña anticipated in October this year.
“We have yet to identify stakeholders who might be able to give. But as they come, we will announce the needs of our students. Our priority is disaster readiness,” she said during the weekly Kapistorya forum at the Capitol yesterday.
Jaralve said the disaster kits would include raincoats, umbrellas and flashlights.
She said that prior to the opening of classes each year, DepEd would remind parents and students to prepare emergency kits, but this would be the first time they would actually seek out private groups to provide these materials to the children.
There are 944 elementary schools with 351,000 students while there are 239 secondary schools with 138,000 students in the whole province of Cebu.
The DepEd provincial division covers all 44 towns in Cebu and has the most number of schools under its jurisdiction in Central Visayas, said Jaralve.
He said input on disaster preparedness, including instructions on how to conduct earthquake and fire drills in schools, is included in the Brigada Eskwela program, a week-long series of activities starting May 30 done in preparation for the opening of classes on June 13.
Parents, students, private individuals and police personnel also pooled resources to clean schools in time for the opening of classes, he added.
School heads are trained on emergency disaster response by the provincial government and then cascaded to teachers who, in turn, will guide the students during times of calamity.
“We don’t want to repeat the experience that we had in the northern part of the province during Yolanda,” Jaralve said.
DepEd engineer April Custodia, in the same forum, said that after Supertyphoon Yolanda hit in November 2013, they made sure that classrooms built were calamity-resilient, or could withstand earthquakes and typhoons. These school buildings, which also double as evacuation centers, have drainage systems, toilets and an area where people can cook.
Custodia said they also started replacing school buildings which are 30 years and older.
Provincial Information Officer Ethel Natera said that over the last three years, the province has given P39 million to local government units that allowed them to build 66 school buildings; and another 66 school buildings with the help of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (Rafi).