DAVAO CITY – The perennial problem of large class size, lack of classrooms and school facilities greet the student on the opening of school year 2015-2016 on Monday here.
In Mintal Elementary Schools, class sizes in Grade 6 reach from 70 to 79 students per class. Classes in Grade 5 have 60 to 70 students.
Principal Estrella P. Villanueva said some parents have brought their own chairs for their children due to shortage in chairs.
Villanueva said their new school building with 25 classrooms has a package of 45 chairs per classroom with separate tables and chairs for teachers per class.
However, the chairs have not yet arrived as of press time. Villanueva said the engineer who took care of the building construction explained that the request made for the chairs “was not included in the first request”.
Teacher Rubylyn Magsigay of Grade 5 said some of her students have to share damaged armchairs so they can sit inside the classroom.
“Common denominator namin ngayon ay kulang kami ng upuan (Our common denominator here is we lack chairs),” she said.
Villanueva said the bidding of the classrooms construction started in December 2013, while the construction started after a year. She said she is unsure when the chairs will arrive.
“Ambot lang, basin October pa (I don’t know. Maybe on October),” she told Davao Today during an interview.
Villanueva said she has already reported it to the Department of Education Division office.
Villanueva said they also tried to fix other damaged chairs and also utilized the donations given by parents during the Brigada Eskwela.
“Gipahimo namo og tables. Tables among gisiguro [para sa estudyante] (We paid it for tables and we prioritized tables [for students]),” Villanueva said.
Villanueva said they are expecting more students as enrolment is still ongoing for late enrollees and transferees.
As of Monday, Mintal Elementary Schools have an estimate of 3,500 students. The school has 68 classrooms.
Last school year, Villanueva said they have reached 3,604 students. But some of the students transferred due to lack of teachers lowering the number of students to 3,363 by July.
The school last year also has an average of one classroom to 60 students.
In Mintal Comprehensive High School, the school area of around 900 square meters houses almost 1,800 students.
Pio Melancolico, principal of MCHS, said they lack classrooms too. The school has two-shifts to accommodate its enrollees. The morning shift starts at 6:30 am to 12:00 pm while the afternoon shift is from 12:30 pm to 6:00 pm.
Melancolico said the new books, except for Values Education subject, for their Grade 10 students “have yet to arrive”.
Melancolico said the teachers will be using the old reference books until the new books arrive.
He said they are expecting the books to arrive this month “as promised by DepEd”.
Principal Alejandro Curay of Matina Central Special Science Elementary School said they are expecting to have around 5,000 students this school year as a lot of students are transferring to their schools. The school last year has 4,704 students. As of Monday, they have 4,997 enrollees while they have only 104 teachers.
Curay said the school has resorted to holding “emergency classes” or two-shifts, to accommodate the students. Students come in as early as 5:30 am for the morning shift, he said.
He said kindergarten classes have a maximum of 40 students per session. Curay said some classes have 60 students “as parents opt morning session” for their children.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers said there are about 21 million students expected to crowd in the more than 42, 000 public elementary and secondary schools in the country.
According to the data gathered by ACT there is a shortage of 57,167 teachers with 4,019 items unfilled by DepED for 2014. The group also pegs the shortage of classrooms to 112, 942.
“59,671 budgeted classrooms were not built by DepED in 2014,” Act said. It also said “at least 23,928,335 textbooks and modules are needed” adding that “12,775,823 of it were supposed to be delivered last school year”.
Act said 4,281 schools also have no water supply and 16,920 water supply projects were not implemented in 2014, while 10,514 schools have no electric service.
“While [President Benigno Aquino] and DepED are bragging that K to 12 is to make our education globally competitive, they were inefficient in the delivery of the essential 34,935 science and mathematics equipment, 10,383 ICT packages and 395 internet connectivity programs. Even if these were fully delivered, it won’t fill the entire need of the public schools in the country,” said Benjamin Valbuena, national chairman of Act.
“This is beyond mismanagement issue; this is an outright neglect of their responsibility,” said Valbuena. (davaotoday.com)
