Erratic weather pattern renders impractical the shift of class opening to September

Two whammies to force makeup classes in typhoon-whacked Luzon

DAVAO CITY – Education Secretary Jesli Lapus ruled out anew the recurring proposal to move the class opening to September or October apparently to spare classes from the onset of the rainy season, citing recent survey of parents and teachers as well as the growing manifestation of the unpredictable weather pattern.

“Climate change is now ravaging the world in ever unpredictable pattern, and look now, if we have moved the class opening in September, we could have sustained two damaging typhoons already in just one month,” he told a press conference at the Waterfront Insular Hotel Davao, where education officials were gathered for a regional education summit.

The summit would try to surface the problems in the education sector within the Davao Region.

The suggestion was already tested in 1972 “and for the next three years there was the bad experience that children have been complaining of the hot weather in summer because the new school year would cover the summer months”.

“Summer months would be bad for children inside the classrooms with no good ventilation,” he said.

“It’s exactly why the people in the West moved their class opening in September because the June and July months are summer in their countries,” he said.

He said that a recent survey among parents and teachers nationwide turned up a 65 percent disapproval to the proposal.

Meanwhile, Lapus clarified that the twin whammies of the influenza A(H1N1) virus and the two typhoons has rendered moot and academic the debate on whether or not to extend classes to the weekend and including holidays.

He said that the forcible suspension of classes in many schools in Metro Manila due to the influenza A(H1N1) and the devastating two typhoons last week have already wrought more than enough interruption in the school year’s schedule.

“There have been debates in Manila about how to make up for lost classes, but what is certain is that we have to make up for that,” he said.

Lapus said that Saturdays would be used to make up lost classes in the areas affected by the typhoons, to cover Metro Manila and most of Regions 4A (Calabarzon) and 4B (Mimaropa), the most affected by Typhoon Ondoy, and the northern Luzon battered by Typhoon Pepeng.

The last week of October, commonly devoted for in-school service training but which is often used as a semestral break, would be utilized for makeup classes.

For Typhoon Ondoy alone, 1,008 schools were damaged and another 242 were being used as temporarily shelter of 34,087 evacuees. The DepEd was assessing the effect of Typhoon Pepeng.

Loses to damaged classrooms was valued at P344,192,840, and other properties such as textbooks, desks, computers and other equipment, amounted to P206,096,062. He said that the
P550 million total damage would take time to recover, but focus was on rehabilitating the classrooms to be used immediately.