Letting the school come to the poor

STA ROSA CITY—It’s almost everything a classroom is—writing desks, plastic chairs, storybooks, cartolina cut-outs, a blackboard, a teacher who writes on the blackboard, and students who get stars stamped at the back of their hands for every correct answer.

Except that the classes are being held under a bridge, in a tent or in a basketball gymnasium.

Thrice each week employees from the barangay hall of Barangay Tagapo here visit the poor communities in their village. They bring with them classroom and instructional materials loaded in a barangay patrol vehicle and roll the materials out into an “improvised classroom.”

This project of Barangay Tagapo is called the School on Wheels to Relevant Education Access Program (Sow to Reap).

“If they can’t come to school, let the school come to them,” said Marietta Bartolazo, 70, the village chief of Tagapo.

Bartolazo, a retired teacher who also owns a private school in this city, said the project started when she observed fewer pupils enrolling each year in the government’s day-care center.

“Some parents say they could not pay for the uniform and fees at the day-care center. Others, who live far from the day-care center, could not afford the tricycle fare to bring their children (to school),” she said.

In July 2010, the Barangay Nutrition Scholars of Tagapo identified the areas where most indigent families live. Children, ages 3-5, who have not attended day-care classes were enlisted to the program.

Railway, Riverbank

Sow to Reap classes are held in five locations—the Ramos compound in Purok 6-A, Daang NIA in Purok 6-B, Farmview Subdivision and Amihan Village, both in Purok 3, and in Tiongco Subdivision in Purok 2.

Bartolazo said if barangay multipurpose halls in the areas are not available, they pitch tents in basketball courts or in a private garage. In one location, they set up the blackboard, tables and chairs near the riverbank.

Each class has an average of 20 students for a total of 108 children enrolled in the program this year.

Annabel Tayson, 25, said she noticed improvements in her son James Ryan, 3, since the boy started attending the day-care class.

“He became more sociable with the other kids and less naughty at home,” she said.

She said James Ryan was always excited about attending the class “he would dress himself up and scream, ‘andyan na sila’ (they’re here) whenever he sees them setting up the chairs.”

The Taysons live along the Philippine National Railway track. In their area, the classes are held under the bridge.

Annabel said they could not afford to send James Ryan to a preparatory school if not for the Sow to Reap as her husband’s earning of P200 a day from seasonal construction jobs is not enough for their food.

Human development

Under the program, the younger children are given work-play activities while the 5-year-olds are taught lessons on the alphabet and numbers.

The barangay office has hired Leah Alvarez, a private school teacher, and assigned barangay health workers to assist her.

After every class, the children line up to wash their hands from a jug of water the barangay volunteers carry with them. Before this, they are given snacks of biscuit and drinks and are taught to pray before meals.

Bartolazo said the Sow to Reap is a human development program not only for the children but also for the parents.

“While the children attend the class, the mothers are also huddled on one side for seminars on health, child care, and livelihood such as rags and candle-making,” she said.

Bartolazo said the program has been sustained through a partnership with private institutions that donated the instructional materials and food.

For instance, the Library Club, a student group from Bartolazo’s school, Holy Rosary College, sew unused notebook pages into new ones and donate them to the Sow to Reap.

The Sow to Reap is the second project submitted by Baranggay Tagapo as a Best Practice program to the Husay Balangay Project of the Department of Interior and Local Government.

In 2009, Barangay Tagapo launched its Adopt-a-Lot program, which turned vacant, barren lands in Tagapo into vegetable farms and material recovery facilities. The initiative was later replicated in other villages in the city.

The Sow to Reap, Bartolazo said, corresponds to the mandatory kindergarten education of the Department of Education (DepEd). Barangay  officials currently arrange with DepEd officials to consider the mobile classroom program as an equivalent kindergarten course to prepare children for admission to Grade 1 in formal schools.