LAGAWE, Ifugao– It’s hard to imagine, but what is happening now at Duit Elementary School is that pupils and teachers continue to hold their classes as if everything is perfectly alright there.
This public school, situated at barangay Duit in Kiangan town, is sitting dangerously in a sinking area. In fact, the entire school building is a condemned structure.
Now, many are worrying on the safety of young learners and their mentors at such “questionable” place. It’s perfectly unsafe.
In the disaster preparedness field, for example, it is easy to say that the pupils and teachers are exposed to “high risks.”
Also, we have to consider that the conditions are far more complicated during the rainy season.
Rainfall volume is strikingly heavy in Kiangan. Almost immediately after a heavy downpour, soil erosions take place. Over the years, widespread cutting of trees caused soil erosion and landslides. Sinking ground is a serious environmental issue because it poses serious threat to properties and lives.
In other words, there is no need for the pupils and teachers to hold their classes a second more in a condemned facility that lies in an evidently, extremely fatal area.
Principal Aida Malanta has appealed to the municipal government and the education sector for immediate assistance.
The appeal also comes as concerned residents in the province cited their “readiness” to help as well as need for expressing of the people’s “sense of solidarity” in dealing with this problem.
Kiangan municipal government, through Mayor Joselito Guyguyon, reportedly allotted substantial funds for the purchase of a lot property as the school’s relocation site.
However, it was revealed that there is difficulty in obtaining the money for tax purposes, a condition imposed by the lot owner. Apparently, the owner is passing his obligation to the other party.
Along with the necessity of constructing a new school building at a new site, attending problems now at hand may lead to long-term problems for the school’s stakeholders.
For Malanta and Josephine Apiit, who is the schools division supervisor of the Kiangan District, any assistance or aid for them in the private sector is indeed “timely and heaven-sent.”
Now here’s the projected, ideal situation: Build a new school building with a canteen, library, rooms for computer learning and science laboratory. However, this would entail a huge budget.
There are some who wants to put up a makeshift building out of old, used wood materials on the same site as a solution to the problem. Clearly, those who are supportive of this idea should come up with a better alternative.
In turn, others have questioned the soundness of such idea that would undermine the interests of the pupils and teachers over a long period of time.
The prevailing thinking among those outside of the public sector now is “Classes are so important to be conducted in a safe and comfortable place. Pupils deserve to be in an environment conducive to learning.”
This can be an important legacy so that the thrust of education will actually result to transforming the young into productive, intellectually competitive, morally upright, law-abiding and socially responsible members of society.
The continuing tie-up between the public and private sectors for Kiangan’s development is so vital. A highly educated populace is needed to spur massive economic development in poor municipalities as this one.
Resolving this problem will activate renewed commitment of kind-hearted and generous individuals in the private sector in further elevating the standards of education in public schools.
What is so important is that all concerned parties push for better conditions for the pupils and teachers of Duit Elementary School as they have been waiting for so long for a genuine, comprehensive and lasting solution to their problem.
Nonetheless, the distressed Duit Elementary School- given its sad state of existence due to terribly flawed thinking of its engineers- are doing much to awaken the Filipinos in this part of the country to be vigilant.
The foregoing points of information are never aimed to serve as a total depiction of actual problems there, just hints of intelligently inspired set of contentions.
The school was just built in 1986. Presently, it has 172 pupils and eight teachers. The school is about four kilometers from the town proper.
Cracks at the walls of the classrooms were seen in 2012. Again, it is extremely hard to imagine why such problem persists to this day. **By Anthony A. Araos
