EDITORIAL — Preparing schools

The nationwide Brigada Eskwela kicks off today with thousands of children in areas affected by Mayon Volcano’s unrest needing to move out of schools converted into evacuation centers. In the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga, schools were also used as temporary shelters by residents affected by the recent massive flooding spawned by Typhoon Egay and the monsoon.

Education officials have long called for a stop to the use of schools as evacuation centers. The problem highlights the continuing lack of both school facilities and decent evacuation centers, despite the frequency of natural calamities that necessitate emergency housing for thousands of people. The country is in the middle of the wet season, so it is likely that tropical cyclones and monsoons will again bring torrential floods to large portions of Bulacan and Pampanga. Once schools open, where will affected residents seek temporary shelter?

The annual Brigada Eskwela is meant chiefly to clean up and undertake repairs of public schools in preparation for the start of classes, this year set on Aug. 29. Department of Education officials reminded everyone that the weeklong program is purely voluntary. While donations for school improvements are accepted, DepEd personnel are prohibited from soliciting such contributions.

Local government units, which this year started receiving a larger share of national revenues, are tasked to provide public school facilities to their constituents. Wealthy LGUs can afford to build additional school buildings and classrooms, hire more teaching personnel and provide computers and other gadgets for facilitating learning. Low-income LGUs will be hard-pressed to provide such services. Areas facing chronic flooding also need help in providing proper education facilities.

The need for additional public school facilities became more acute amid the economic toll of the pandemic lockdowns, which forced many parents to transfer their children from private to public schools because they could no longer afford to pay tuition. The transfers forced the shutdown of several private schools; most of them remain closed even with the gradual economic recovery from the pandemic.

Despite the higher revenue allotments of LGUs, in most areas of the country, additional school facilities will have to wait. The government has set modest goals for Brigada Eskwela: “to provide “clean, neat and orderly” schools and classrooms, as a DepEd official declared last week. With help from volunteers, this goal at least can be achieved.