Kids in Mayon’s danger zones resume schooling in tents, merged classes

AERIAL view of Mayon last month. MARC ALVIC ESPLANA/INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON

MANILA, Philippines—Classes in 78 schools within the 6-kilometer permanent and 8-kilometer extended danger zones around the restive Mt. Mayon volcano in Albay have all resumed.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said that his agency undertook interventions to ensure that some 55,000 learners in the province would go on receiving their education despite the uncertainty of Mayon volcano’s eruption.

In a statement, Luistro said that while some students were displaced by the impending eruption and the use of some 40 schools in five towns and two cities as evacuation centers, the Department of Education has been working to ensure the continued education of these kids.

Towns and cities within the permanent and extended danger zones are: Tabaco, Ligao, and Legazpi Cities; as well as the municipalities of Malilipot, Daraga, Camalig, Guinobatan, and Sto. Domingo, which have a total of 48 villages.

Among interventions undertaken by the DepEd are the provisions of temporary learning spaces or tents as well as the merger of classes particularly for students who were displaced from their schools within the danger zones or those used as evacuation centers.

He said that his agency’s offices are finalizing arrangements for the procurement and distribution of 15,000 chairs and 300 tents for the schools doubling as evacuation centers.

Luistro called for donations of more tents, tarps, chairs, and learner’s kits for students in Albay Province even as the DepEd has received pledges of around 12,000 learner’s kits and 190 temporary learning spaces from donors.

He assured the public that the agency has been working with Albay government officials and local education cluster partners in monitoring and supervising both the operation of evacuation centers and the delivery of education services to the province’s affected learners.