EDITORIAL - Going beyond the lack of classrooms

After two years of modular and blended learning, face-to-face classes resumed yesterday for over 27 million students all over the country.

As usual the perennial problems were present, including the chaos, the traffic, and the crying kids who have yet to adjust to school. But most noticeable of all these was lack of classrooms, some 91,000 of these still needed nationwide.

Of course, the schools had to make do. In Tondo one school had to cram as many as 60 students into one classroom just to make sure everyone could be accommodated. In Davao some schools had to resort to shifting just to accommodate their students; one batch of students would use the classroom from 6 a.m. to noon, while another batch would use it from noon to 6 p.m.

We are sure other schools are coming up with their own solutions to this problem.

Yes, the lack of classrooms is a never-ending problem during school opening, considering how much our student population grows each year. It is also good that some schools are coming up with solutions just to get students into the classroom, but let’s hope those solutions are temporary because they may be doing more harm than good.

One study shows that the longer the students spend in the classroom the more they learn. If they are limited to less than the ideal number of hours in the classroom to accommodate another batch of learners, they may not be learning as much as they should.

Another problem is the number of students in the classroom. The ideal is 20 to 25 students per classroom, and some classrooms have more than double those numbers. The more students there are the more a teacher’s attention is divided. He or she may not be able to give quality learning the students deserve.

Even before the pandemic our students were already doing bad in math, reading, and science compared to other children their age around the world. More disturbingly, a recent study revealed that nine out of 10 Filipino children age 10 are still struggling to read simple texts.

How can we expect them to improve under these conditions?