MANILA, Philippines – Public schools near the restive Mount Mayon in Albay have started employing class shifting and other interventions to accommodate students who fled with their families to evacuation centers ahead of a possible volcanic eruption.

About 76 public schools in 5 towns and 2 cities in have been affected since September 15, when Mayon was placed on Alert Level 3 for showing signs of “relatively high unrest.”

• Cities: Ligao and Tabaco
• Towns: Santo Domingo, Malilipot, Guinobatan, Camalig, and Daraga

Majority or 39 of these schools are in areas where forced evacuation has been ordered, while the other 37 schools have been turned into evacuation centers.

As of Monday, at least 11,255 families or 51,963 people have already been evacuated. Albay Governor Joey Salceda on Tuesday morning, September 23, said 18 additional barangays will be relocated. (READ: Mayon ‘relaxing before full-blown eruption’)

At least 52 barangays (villages) in the cities and towns surrounding the volcano have been put under a state of calamity, and restrictions have been imposed on tourism-related activities around it. (READ: Pets, livestock around Mayon to be evacuated too)

Meanwhile, less than 52,000 students are affected by the evacuations. 

“Beginning yesterday, Monday, we’ve already started to resume classes in a per-school basis. This means we leave it up to schools when they are ready to resume. The schools face different challenges,” DepEd Assistant Secretary Rey Laguda told Rappler in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Laguda recently went to Albay to assess the situation of public schools there. 

He said the department is still in the process of identifying appropriate interventions for the affected schools. 

For example, the Ligao West Central School had to cancel classes because the school gave up more than 20 classrooms for evacuees from one barangay in Ligao City. As of Monday, Laguda said, all students in the school are already attending classes in two shifts.

DepEd instructed schools not to go beyond two shifts.

“If needed, adapt another intervention and not another shift. Learning could be compromised, but we don’t want it to be totally sacrificed,” Laguda explained.

Merged classes, tents

In schools with small class sizes, the department is considering merging classes to free up classrooms for other students. 

Another intervention is putting up makeshift classrooms. The education department is already distributing 155 tents from Unicef to the affected schools, but a lot more are needed. In a text message to Rappler on Tuesday, Salceda said the province still needs:

• 870 tents
• 54,904 armchairs
• 1,025 blackboards

In the next 24 to 48 hours, DepEd will have more definite numbers from the ground to reassess whether more tents are needed.

“We need to resume classes as soon as possible. [We have to] account for students and teachers, orient them what will happen in the next days, and when it’s possible to go back to school,” Laguda said. (READ: Mayon unrest alarms Albay residents)

Regular classes continue for the rest (648 out of 724) of the public schools in Albay. Laguda said tents can be directly donated to DepEd or the provincial government. – Rappler.com