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Monday, June 09, 2003
Half of Region 11 pupils won't have chairs
By Christie Enriquez-Uayan
DAVAO -- This school opening, two to three elementary students in public schools in Southern Mindanao will have to fit themselves into one desk and an armchair.
Records at the Department of Education (DepEd) in Region 11 showed the armchair-student ratio among public schools is 1:2.3. The region has a shortage of 106,997 armchairs.
The Actual number of armchairs in the region's public schools number only 76,890, or over a hundred thousand less than the expected 191,000 Grades 4 to 6 students in the intermediate class who will be using it when school opens.
Desks, which are a common fixture in classrooms occupied by Grades 1 to 3 pupils, are also 56,206 short. Desk to pupil ratio is 1:2.42, as reported by DepEd 11.
There are only about 183,468 desks in the region's public schools, not enough to service the more or less 240,000 pupils who are expected to use it this school year.
Davao City posts the biggest shortage of armchairs in the whole region at 30,360. Compostela Valley province comes second with 20,704. In Davao del Norte, 19,171 seats are still needed, while Davao del Sur lacks 16,485 chairs.
Inadequate number of seats is also noted in Panabo and Digos cities, both are lacking 5,560 and 4,855 tables, respectively.
Desks, meanwhile, are also badly needed in Davao City. Shortage of desks is expected to reach 18,437. Davao del Norte needs 9,088 more, while Davao del Sur is short by 8,407.
On the other hand, some 7,524 students in Compostela Valley might not have desks this school year. The same is true for Davao Oriental's 6,936 pupils.
Cities such as Panabo and Digos have lesser desk deficiencies at 2,719 and 3,095.
In last Saturday's Kapihan sa PIA, DepEd City division superintendent Susana Estigoy admitted the different public schools in the region cannot provide enough facilities to the skyrocketing number of enrollees.
Aside from inadequate facilities, public schools in the region are also having problems with the shortage of classrooms and teachers.
Almost 1 million students are expected to troop to the different schools in the region Monday. About 620,864 are enrolled in Grades 1 to 6 while 264,500 are high school students.
(June 9, 2003 issue)
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