DepEd: Kristine school damage reaches P3.3B

Severe Tropical Storm Kristine caused P3.3 billion worth of infrastructure damage to over 38,000 schools nationwide, the Department of Education (DepEd) said on Sunday.

Based on DepEd’s partial data on the effects of Kristine, it would take P2.7 billion to reconstruct classrooms that were damaged by the storm, and another P680 million for the major repairs.

A total of 2,700 classrooms were totally damaged by Kristine, while 1,361 sustained partial damage.

There were also 861 schools that reported secondary hazards such as flooding and landslides.

All in all, 38,333 schools nationwide had to suspend in-person classes due to Kristine, affecting 19.4 million learners and 786,726 teaching and non-teaching personnel.

Currently, 1,047 schools are being used as evacuation centers.

In a post on Facebook, Saleema Refran reported that the Bilibinwang Elementary School in the town of Agoncillo, Batangas is still partially buried in mud as a result of floodwater brought by Kristine.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara last Thursday admitted to having concerns with regard to suspension of face-to-face classes due to natural disasters as it may result in further learning losses.

“Actually, nababahala na kami. So, ginawa namin is pina-collate na namin ano ‘yung number of missed number of classes. Tapos ilan ‘yung na napilitan na ma-cancel. Of those, ilan na, let's say, sabi mong nasa 20 ‘yun, ilan na ‘yung na-make up nung bata,” he told reporters.

(Actually, we became concerned. So, what we did is we collated the number of missed classes then determined how many of those were forced to cancel. If there are 20 missed classes, we want to know how many make-up classes were already taken by the child.)

“Baka umabot na kasi sa punto na sobrang dami na ‘yung na-miss na [klase] hindi na nila ma-recover. So ‘yun ang concern namin ngayon dahil parang napapadalas na ‘yung mga bagyo at talagang ang importante diyan ay hindi learning loss ang nangyayari. Talagang kahit nasa bahay, merong pakinabang para sa mga estudyante sana,” he added.

(We fear that it may reach a point where there are so many missed classes and these can no longer be recovered. So that's our concern now because it seems like the storms are getting more frequent. The important thing here is that there’s no learning loss and even at home, they can still study.)

Angara said it is now up to principals of affected schools whether they need to set up Saturday classes to make up for the missed classes.

Based on DepEd’s data, 11 learners and one school employee died as a result of landslides, electrocution, and drowning amid the onslaught of the typhoon.

Eleven of them were reported in Batangas, and one in Himamaylan City in Negros Occidental.

A total of 85 persons nationwide reportedly died due to Kristine, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said Sunday. —RF, GMA Integrated News