What awaits SY 2013-2014 in Yolanda-hit areas?

In the course of bringing back my in-laws to Leyte, after we brought them to Cebu for safety following the ravages of Yolanda, I had to travel from Ormoc to Carigara, their hometown, and could not resist making a sidetrip to Tacloban to see with my own eyes what I have only seen on tv.

And just as I have seen on tv, the devastation was everywhere. What I saw only validated what I have already seen in the news, only that the actual experience makes it truly heart-wrenching, and on many occasions I felt tears really well up in my eyes at what happened to places that used to be so familiar to me.

There were also moments of anger, especially on seeing the destruction of school buildings. Each school I passed by from Ormoc to Carigara and then on to Tacloban had been affected without exception, differing only in the degree of destruction or damage sustained.

I was moved to anger because I remember having written against the immediate reopening of classes as ordered by Education Secretary Armin Luistro just a few weeks after Yolanda struck. I was aghast at his order then and I am angry now.

If Luistro has to give any order, he has to know what it means and how it affects the subjects of his order. His ordering the immediate reopening of classes was stupid, probably given for no other reason than to show his concern about education, forgetting the health and safety of those to be educated.

I don't know if Luistro had been on the ground in Leyte, or if he had been if he travelled extensively enough. But I make a claim now without exaggeration and would welcome it to be validated by anyone — there is not a school on the road from Ormoc to Tacloban that has not been damaged or destroyed.

In other words, and depending on the severity of the damage or destruction, holding classes in these affected schools is either very difficult or simply impossible, even today, more than a month since Luistro gave his stupid order.

Those who went along with the order, who probably had no choice, say it is important to gather the students again, if only to do some psychological debriefing in order to help the kids along with their lives. Ok fine, but I have two questions regarding that.

First is how qualified the teachers are to psychologically debrief the students. If the teachers are not qualified to perform such a delicate mission, the danger is that they will only exacerbate the situation and do more harm than the good they intended. Besides, teachers were victims too and may need help as well.

Second is what does Luistro plan to do after the psychological debriefings in face of a situation that clearly is no longer conducive to any learning. Does he have anything in mind? Will the students have to repeat the schoolyear or will they promoted en masse?

As of now, two months after Yolanda, we still have to hear from Luistro about his plans for the schoolyear in those areas devastated by the supertyphoon. If the students have to repeat because of the severe loss of time, does he plan to cut short the schoolyear and send the kids home for good?

On the other hand, if Luistro intends to persist and push ahead with the schoolyear despite its having been drastically shortened, what about the quality of learning that the students will be bringing with them to the next level?

And how will all these calamities affect the K to 12 program of Luistro which was ostensibly intended to bring Filipino students at par with the rest of the world. If Luistro has any plans of coping with all these challenges, he better speak up now because the nation is waiting to hear from him?

But before he speaks up, I respectfully recommend that he visit Leyte and travel from Ormoc to Tacloban to see for himself the devastation suffered by schools along this route. And I am just talking of this route. Maybe he needs to visit the rest of the Yolanda-hit areas as well and do some calculating.