With the upcoming school year 2018-2019, the ill-fated city of Tacloban have yet to recover from the destructive super typhoon Yolanda that occurred in 2013 as over 3,500 students will still held classes in a make shift classrooms until such time the government can provide them proper and permanent classrooms within the relocation sites provided for the victims of Yolanda.
According to Department of Education (DepEd) Superintendent Thelma Quitalig, there are still 88 temporary learning spaces that will be used by the students of Tacloban City amongst those families who moved to the northern relocation sites especially those who are from coastal communities who are badly devastated by the super typoon Yolanda.
5 years have passed and yet of the seven new schools, only two the campuses have been provided proper and permanent classrooms to held their classes while the other five new campuses will still have to learn in a makeshift classroom made up of coconut lumber, plywood, and corrugated iron sheets until the funds for the central office that was requested early of 2017 to be used as Temporary Learning Space (TLS) are released. The DepEd acknowledge that education is still one of the basic needs of children of those families who relocated from Tacloban City.
More or less 10,000 among the 14,000 planned numbers of families have already been successfully transferred by the government to their new homes miles away from threats and harm of storm surges.
Even though the TLS were officially constructed last year, some permanent houses are still unoccupied and were not used by the learners. With this slow response of the government to aid these victims, many families is still suffering from a poor way of living and still has to suffer as there are floor which was not concreted, that becomes muddy during the rainy days due to water walling shortage and had to endure the heat since the room was a little bit exposed in direct sunlight during the days.
However, the department remains hopeful that their main office will find new sites for the buildings intended to provide the children with proper education and learning spaces.
Source: PNA
