EDITORIAL - Has anyone factored in the toll on K to 12?

The destruction wrought by typhoon Ruby may not have been as crippling and as widespread as that of Yolanda. But all destruction is the same where it is suffered, and by whom. It is disruptive and often life-changing. Destruction, big or small, has to be factored into everything that proceeds thereafter. It cannot be ignored nor swept under the rug.

One area that should be of particular concern, away from the number of lives lost and the destruction to dwellings, crops and farmlands, is how Ruby, and in fact the series of weather disturbances that recently visited the country, has affected the already fragile educational system, with particular emphasis on how it bodes for the future of K to 12.

K to 12 is this government program of adding kindergarten and two more years of high school to the basic education curriculum. Kindergarten has already been added to the curriculum, but the additional two years of high school will not be implemented until 2016, which is now just a little over a year away. The addition of two more years of high school will entail other additions elsewhere, most notably classrooms and qualified high school teachers.

Even before talk of K to 12 started, the classroom situation in the country was already disastrous. Aside from the gaping shortage of classrooms, any new rooms being built just could not meet the growing number of students entering the system each year. And then came the disasters. Super typhoon Yolanda alone could account for the destruction of almost all classrooms in its wake.

But with the bulk of rebuilding focused on human dwellings, classroom construction or reconstruction suffered from low prioritization. More resources and energies were naturally devoted to the more pressing human needs. The matter of education had to take a back seat in the overall rebuilding scheme. And yet there is no stopping time. Pretty soon it will be 2016.

So far, judging by all the reports that have emerged post-typhoon Ruby, little or no mention is made of the extent of damage or destruction wrought on classrooms in the affected areas. Even rarer is any pronouncement about how government seeks to address this latest obstacle to the successful implementation of the K to 12 program.

When the K to 12 program was announced, it was met by a howl of protest and opposition from a wide variety of sectors, but most particularly from parents and independent educators who believe the country was not prepared and in a position to adopt the changes. But the Department of Education would have none of that. Maybe now it would reconsider its obstinate position and acknowledge that the natural calamities have further reduced our readiness for K to 12.