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Thursday, June 09, 2005
Upland brys. lack desks, teachers
The Cebu City Council yesterday asked the Department of Education (DepEd) to immediately remedy the lack of school desks and teachers in mountain barangays.
That, after Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) president Eugenio Faelnar reported the need for more equipment and teachers in mountain barangays he visited last Tuesday.
Faelnar said the students had to stand or sit elsewhere because of the lack of desks, while there were those just milling about as there were no teachers.
He mentioned what he discovered to fellow City Councilor Edgardo Labella, who promptly asked colleagues to do something.
“There is a valid reason to be alarmed, considering that the lamentable incident is contrary to his year’s DepEd’s program thrust dubbed as the schools first policy,” Labella said.
The City Council yesterday asked that DepEd “look into this serious matter” and promptly address the problem.
In a separate interview, Cebu City schools superintendent Leonilo Oliva admitted that the City’s public schools indeed lack desks and armchairs.
The problem persisted despite the delivery of 3,000 armchairs from the National Government in the past three months.
The City last year also spent P3 million to buy desks and armchairs, but more are still needed, he added.
The Cebu City DepEd is still waiting for the national office to finalize its appropriations, to see if some amount will be allocated for the office.
This year, City Hall is prioritizing the repair and construction of school buildings, not the purchase of desks and chairs.
As to the lack of teachers, he explained DepEd is following a system in determining the number of teachers to be detailed to a specific school.
For the secondary level, he said, the total population of students will be divided by 55 (prescribed number of students in a classroom) and multiplied by 1.5 (the teacher-to-classroom ratio).
The resulting figure is the number of teachers that should be employed in that particular school.
For grades one to four, Oliva added, the total number of students would simply be divided by 55. The resulting quotient is the number of teachers the school should have.
For grades five to six, three teachers will be handling two classes.
Although the teachers have their own specialization (English, mathematics, etc.), they have to teach other subjects to fulfill the required six-hour actual teaching and two-hour related work required by the Magna Carta for Teachers.
“Kung one teacher for every subject, which is for an hour, unsay iyang buhaton sa remaining five hours? We can be charged with misuse of government funds kung mao nay atong buhaton,” he said.
Concern
That, he added, explains why mountain barangay schools, which have smaller student populations than those in urban barangays, have few teachers.
Oliva also revealed that judging by the trend, they expect a lower turnout of enrollees compared to last year.
So far, with 80 percent of the expected number of students already attending classes, there are just over 63,000 elementary students, compared to 93,000 last year.
For high school, over 16,000 are now enrolled. Around 49,000 entered secondary schools last school year.
Oliva said he was thankful the City Council took cognizance of the problem.
“I really appreciate their concern. This will help me procure more,” he said, saying the council resolution can serve as his basis to lobby for more funding. (RHM)
(June 9, 2005 issue)
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