DepEd: Over 8K schools, 6M students disrupted by severe weather

Rains and flooding from successive cyclones and the Southwest Monsoon or Habagat have affected around 8,000 schools nationwide and disrupted learning for 6 million students, Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sonny Angara said on Wednesday.

Tropical cyclones Luis and Maymay, together with the enhanced Southwest Monsoon triggered widespread flooding and landslides across the country. Classes and government work were suspended in several areas for days.

“Apektado, estimate namin is mga 8,000 schools yung initial report sa amin covering 6 million students … ng cancellations so kailangan may konting recovery diyan,” Angara said in an ambush interview in Pasig City.

(The affected, we estimate it to be 8,000 schools in our initial report, so that covers 6 million students so there needs to be a bit of recovery there.)

This is already one-fifth of the country’s schools, Angara said.

However, Angara said that they have not received all the reports yet, so there may still be affected schools that have not been counted.

The DepEd chief said that the new three-term academic calendar has already accounted for the class suspensions caused by weather systems, so the students should be able to make up for the lost days.

In the DepEd's 5 p.m. situational report, around 217 schools are still being used as evacuation centers for over 6,400 families.

Around P32.69 million is also needed for cleaning and clearing operations at 1,157 schools.

This is on top of the P192.86 million needed to repair 3,936 schools.

The Ilocos Region reported the highest number of affected schools, followed by Central Luzon and the Cordillera Administrative Region. —LDF, GMA News