ILOILO – The damage to various schools in Western Visayas brought by Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” has reached P250 million, according to the Department of Education Region 6’s (DepEd-6) Education Support Services Division (ESSD).
Of the total estimated cost of damage, the ESSD reported P65.9-million damage from infrastructures such as classrooms and comfort rooms while non-infrastructures incurred P184.16-million worth of damage.
According to Ma. Lera Cynthia Quijada, ESSD project development officer IV, 37 schools in the regions incurred minor and major infrastructure damage while 89 schools recorded non-infrastructure damage which included furniture, learning materials and computers.
Based on their validated data, a total of 11 classrooms in the region were totally damaged and needed an estimated P27.5 million for reconstruction.
Meanwhile, 61 classrooms incurred major damage with an estimated cost of repair amounting to P30.5 million while 280 classrooms have minor damages and needed P8.4 million for repairs.
According to DepEd-6 regional director Ramir Uytico, data gathered regarding the damage were already reported by the schools to their respective schools division engineers. The validated data were then submitted by the schools superintendents to the regional office and forwarded to the DepEd central office.
Uytico said the funding for repair or restoration of damaged school facilities will go through a process; they are waiting for updates from the central office.
“We prioritize, so we follow up. We are waiting the downloading of funds for the repair of these classrooms,” he added.
Uytico admitted that the devastation left by “Paeng” in some schools in the region was an added challenge when the scheduled full face-to-face classes implementation started on Nov. 2, just a few days after the typhoon ravaged the region.
For her part, Dr. Elena Gonzaga, OIC-chief of DepEd-6’s Curriculum and Learning Management Division, said despite the damage, in-person classes will continue; some of the available spaces of the schools such as libraries and teachers’ room are converted into instructional classrooms.
Moreover, some of the schools partnered with other private organizations or schools for the use of facilities of the former such as laboratories.
Gonzaga said 51 schools from eight schools division had partnership with other private organizations or schools.
As to the challenges on teachers, Gonzaga said DepEd is maximizing the hiring of teachers.
There are 5,040 schools in the region including public and private primary and secondary schools, state universities and colleges (SUCs) as well as local universities.
Of the 4,048 public schools, 99.9 percent or 4,044 are having 100 percent in-person modality while the remaining four schools from areas hardly-hit by “Paeng” are undergoing blended learning modality.
Quijada noted that though a significant number of private schools are having blended learning modality, majority of them are holding in-person classes and only one school conducts full distant learning.
As to SUCs and local universities, Quijada said none of them is doing full distant learning; only two schools are into blended modality while the rest conduct full in-person classes./PN
