SCHOOL IN THE TYPHOON-AFFECTED areas of the Republic of Philippines (pop. 97 million) are slowly reopening and thousands of students are resuming classes after the category 5 storm struck the island nation last November. Millions of children have had their education disrupted due to school buildings being severely damaged or used as shelters for survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.

“We want to resume classes. We just don’t know how,” says Noel Lombres, principal of the Marabut Central elementary school in Samar Province, where 468 children aged 5-11 once attended classes. Three of the school’s 15 classrooms were blown off their foundations, and 12 no longer have roofs since Haiyan first made landfall in the town of Guiuan in Eastern Samar province on November 8, leaving over 5,900 people dead and more than 1,700 missing.

Starting on December 2, the Philippine department of education (DepEd) began what is being termed a ‘soft’ reopening of its schools. International partners are providing support by way of tents used as makeshift classrooms and setting up other temporary learning spaces to provide safe and protective environments for children, along with psychosocial support.

“It’s important that the children get back to school in order to resume their normal lives,” says Luisa Bautista, director of Region VIII, one of the three worst affected areas. The region has six provinces — Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Northern Samar, Samar and Eastern Samar — where an estimated 676,000 children have had their education disrupted.

In early December, thousands of children in her region returned to classes, but given the sheer scale of the devastation, schools remain shut in many areas. Formal classes were expected to resume in January.

Meanwhile more than 4 million people remain displaced, including 103,604 still being housed in 386 evacuation centres, while the rest have moved in with family and friends, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC). Thousands are living in the open in makeshift shelters they have put up near their destroyed homes, and schools continue to be used as evacuation centres, including 97 in Samar and Leyte. Preliminary estimates of the damage to the region’s education infrastructure project it at $52 million (Rs.322 crore), according to the NDRRMC.

Teachers returning to their jobs are likely to encounter some children who manifest out-of-character behaviour, including depression and hyperactivity, warns Unicef. “Teachers need to be able to draw lessons from the experiences of children surviving the tragedy, which is more important than 10 textbooks combined,” says Yul Olaya, a Unicef spokesperson.

(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)