Schools as evac centers disrupt education

The eruption of Mt. Mayon in Albay has exposed, yet again, a long standing problem that the government does not seem very eager to solve. The problem involves the use of public schools as evacuation centers. The use of public schools as evacuation centers, not just during the Mayon eruption but during each and every disaster and calamity throughout the country, effectively denies them the purpose for which they were built.

And while government has the responsibility to look after the victims of disasters and calamities and provide them with the necessary shelter, the education department does not have to be that particular agency of government required to provide such shelter. There are other agencies that can be tapped that do not require the displacement of students and the disruption of their studies.

Both the social welfare department and the armed forces can quickly provide tents for the victims. The public works department can very well do the same. And yet, for too long a time, it has always been the education department and its public schools that are required to provide the needed shelter for evacuees and victims at the expense of their own classes and operations.

This practice does not go well with efforts by the government to raise the bar on quality of education. On the contrary, it reveals exactly how cavalier its attitude is toward quality education. When government launched its K to 12 program, which added two years to basic education, it did so with much insistence that essentially drowned out all well-meaning appeals for caution and time.

As it turned out, the K to 12 program is being haphazardly implemented, and with so much trial and error. Government went ahead with the program just for the sake of having such program, ostensibly to be at par with the rest of the world. What this tells everyone is that government’s vision for education is as fuzzy as they come. And this notion gets unassailable support from the ease and willingness by which government allows the disruption of classes at every calamity or disaster.

With quality of education already sub-par as it is without disruptions, the government still cannot get it into its head that the continued use of schools and classrooms during disasters and calamities only adds to the deterioration. The practice cannot go on, if only for the sake of the schoolchildren. Calamities and disasters do not come by surprise. They are part of the national life. They are inevitable. And they can be prepared for. So prepare we must and leave schools alone.