EDITORIAL - The other victim

After disasters like fires, earthquakes, or typhoons, the focus is usually on the people who need help after being displaced, evacuated, or injured, and rightfully so. But there is another silent victim of such disasters; the education of our students.

This usually happens when disasters interrupt a school calendar, forcing students to stay home where they are safe from the elements instead of going to school. But this can also happen when evacuees are housed in schools, and children cannot use their regular classrooms. Or when school facilities themselves are destroyed by natural disasters.

The good news is that some solutions are now being proposed to deal with this problem.

For instance, the Cebu Provincial School Board has approved a ?85-million budget for the putting up of Temporary Learning Shelters in place of classrooms that were destroyed by the 6.9-magnitude earthquake that hit Cebu on September 30.

Meanwhile, in Mandaue City, the Department of Education Mandaue City Division said they will implement blended learning, alternating classroom schedules, and shortened class periods for schools that are still being used as evacuation centers by those left homeless by Typhoon Tino which hit earlier this month.

While these sound good, it’s too early to tell if these solutions will have a positive impact on our students’ learning.

Remember a few years ago there was a study that placed Filipinos students among the lowest when it came to reading comprehension and problem solving? That study hasn’t been followed up yet and, as far as we know, the quality of education we provide our students hasn’t changed. Chances are, with these frequent interruptions caused by Mother Nature, the situation might even be worse.

Until now there’s really no concrete evidence that distance learning is as good as actual face-to-face learning.

There’s not much we can do about classrooms being destroyed by forces of nature, but we should avoid making schools evacuation centers after disasters happen. Proposals like multi-purpose barangay buildings that can double as evacuation centers have been put forward, but there has been little or no action regarding this.

Now, with every incident that forces families to take shelter in schools, we can’t help but get that nagging feeling that with each disaster that strikes, the more negative impact it has on our children’s learning.