A recent post going around Facebook shows how dismal the treatment towards public school education can be. It shines a light on how public school teachers are left to fend for themselves and make their own ends meet with little support. A certain public school in Cavite makes this clear with their faculty having to use an old comfort room as an alternative Faculty room.
Maricel Herrera’s photos show a depilated room repurposed to hold the faculty’s respective materials and files in between classes. Herrera explained to ABS-CBN that the school’s administration had converted their old faculty quarters into badly needed classrooms. While the faculty was provided alternative venues like the school library and even the Principal’s office, they weren’t quite convenient for the teachers.
These new locations would be too far away from the classrooms to make it a viable stop in-between classes and would just require them to carry heavy materials for longer distances. Additionally, there would not be enough space for all 240 members of the faculty.
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Herrera also mentions that the faculty had to pay Php 1,500 out of their own pocket to make the comfort room usable. They also tried to arrange a dialogue with the school principal and division superintendent with no success.
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However, Education Secretary Leonor Briones clarifies that this is an isolated situation:
We thank media for calling our attention to these things … yung mga kulang sa facilities, meron pa ring mga ganyang istorya [lack of facilities, there are still stories like that]. But that does not speak about the entire picture of education itself.
What do you think should be done to improve public school education?
