Schools made of bottles can add classroom space

After holding all its classes on another campus for the past six years, the students of San Pablo City Science High School hope to finally have a school building they can call their own. Their wish might just come true if their school is chosen for relocation to the country's first bottle school. Plastic bottle schools are made out of plastic bottles filled with liquefied adobe, which is said to be four times stronger than conventional hollow blocks. The plastic bottle school is a cluster of eight classrooms that can accommodate 500 students in San Pablo, Laguna’s Barangay San Jose. Built on a 560-square-meter lot donated by the municipal government, the school’s classrooms are four times the size of a standard classroom and have much higher ceilings. (See: Una sa Asya: Paaralang ‘gawa’ sa plastic bottle) Its windows are made of rum bottles instead of the more expensive flat glass, and the roof is constructed from recycled tetra-packs. The panel boards are a mixture of corn fibers and rice husks, with human hair and chicken feathers used as binders instead of steel bars.

“A six-wheeler truck can run over it but [it] won’t break," said Illac Diaz, executive director of MyShelter Foundation, which initiated the Plastic Bottle School. The idea is to build more classrooms out of inexpensive and readily available materials. “Wherever there are plastic bottles, we can build classrooms and there is that possibility to meet the education needs of the children there," Diaz said. With a little help from Doc Ferds and Kiko of the GMA Network show “Born to be Wild" the Plastic Bottle School was built. They contributed at least 32,800 bottles to the project to mark their show’s third anniversary. Over a million displaced school children Diaz conceptualized the Plastic Bottle School Project after the World Bank published its 2009 report — “Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng: Post Disaster Needs Assessment" — which described the damage to 3,417 elementary and high schools, 36 colleges and universities, and 2,800 day-care centers. Over a million displaced school children had to use basketball courts and barangay halls as temporary classrooms, even as many others still had to miss school for weeks — others even months. The education sector sustained P1.3 billion in damage, with the reconstruction and recovery costs running up to P3.5 billion. “Nakikigamit lang kami ng six classrooms sa Dalubhasan ng Lungsod ng San Pablo. Apat lang doon ang pang lecture. ‘Yung isa faculty room, ‘yung isa pa, computer room," said Arnold Sinen, the school's officer-in-charge . One of the classrooms, Sinen said, has been divided into three: a lecture room, a laboratory, and a library. Earth and bamboo MyShelter also made similar efforts to create new classrooms — but made out of soil in Surigao and of bamboo in Camarines Sur. Students of Day-asan National High School in Surigao who used to attend classes in a makeshift nipa hut now occupy the earthen school. With packed soil as its main building component, the Earthen School used a small amount of wood and steel which helped cut back on cost. Each classroom costs only P200,000 to build, or 40 percent less than building a conventional classroom. It can also be built at a much shorter time. The bamboo school in Barangay Nato, Sagnay, Camarines Sur is the first school in the Philippines made mostly of bamboo — an indigenous material. Supported by steel and reinforced concrete, the Bamboo School is sturdy. The classrooms are built to withstand gusty winds of over 150 miles per hour, which can uproot trees and blow down flimsy houses. Chronic classroom shortage Despite such efforts, the classroom shortage in the Philippines has grown 1,700 percent from a shortfall of 8,443 classrooms in 2001 to the current deficit of 152,569 classrooms. The National Capital Region has a shortage of 23,964 classrooms, Region IV-A (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) lacks 18,508 classrooms, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM 13,404 classrooms. These are just the three places with the greatest shortage. According to the Department of Education (DepEd), 190 provinces and cities need additional classrooms, with Lanao del Sur in ARMM having the most pressing need. The country now has 421,496 classrooms, of which 328,406 are for elementary schools and 93,090 for high schools. With more classrooms come the need for more chairs — another problem. To fill each classroom with 48 chairs, the DepEd needs more than 13 million chairs at a cost of about P12.8 billion. Overpopulating classrooms DepEd’s latest statistics show the classroom-to-student ratio currently stands at 1:36 (one classroom per 36 students) for elementary schools and 1:38 for high schools. To address the shortage, the DepEd puts an average of 60 students in a classroom by dividing school classes into shifts. “Schools in urbanized or highly populated areas need to do shifting of classes. One particular reason is due to lack of available land for the construction of new buildings," says DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro. Other schools have far worse conditions such as Eastern Bacoor National High School (EBNHS) in Cavite. On average, some 125 students are cramped into each of the 14 classrooms that were originally intended for 50 students maximum per room. This happens despite efforts to hold classes in two shifts. “Shoulder-to-shoulder na mga bata sa classroom. The local government has committed to build additional classrooms but until now there’s no available land," said Emelina Barlao, the school principal. Teacher Olga Soriano uses a lapel microphone so students across the room can hear her. “Sometimes we lose our voice because of too much shouting. If we don’t shout, then students in the back won’t hear us," she said. Third-year student Krzna Vargas finds it hard to focus on the lessons given the environment. “Marami kaming hindi maka-cope na students. Naiinitan ang iba kase maikli yung bubong. Kapag umuulaan, nababasa naman kami," she said. Vargas attends classes in a makeshift classroom originally intended to be a mini-chapel. Shifts aggravate the situation by limiting the time students spend learning in class. The first shift in EBNHS runs from 6 a.m. to 12:30 p.m, the second shift from 12:50 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. “Instead of one hour per class we have shortened it to 50 minutes. Science classes should have 120 minutes but we shortened it to 50 minutes," said Barlao. Population growth Population growth breeds an increase in enrollment, which in turn breeds the need for more classrooms. There lies the problem. The National Statistics Office estimated that there were 94.01 million Filipinos last year, up from 88.57 million in 2007. The Commission on Population said the Philippines posted the highest fertility rate — the average number of children born to each child-bearing-age woman — in the region at 3.3 percent. Even if couples limit their children to two, “the population will continue to grow in the next 50 years." Budget shortage With the DepEd’s budget, solving the classroom shortage is a pipe dream. The department got a budget allocation of P207 billion this year, up 18 percent from its 2010 budget. While a significant part of its budget, or P16.6 billion, will go to capital outlay, funds for classroom building will have to compete with such expenses as the creation of 10,000 teaching positions and the purchase of 3.2 million textbooks. The money for building classrooms this year is only P7.9 billion. The DepEd would need P104.5 billion to build an additional 152,569 classrooms to achieve a classroom-to-student ratio of 1:45 on single shift. Budget Secretary Florencio Abad earlier said only 18,169 classrooms will be built this year. The rest of DepEd’s budget will be used for personal services or salaries (P165.4 billion) and maintenance and other expenses (P25 million). Poor conditions, poor grades The more students there are in a class, the less the students will benefit from education. “Transfer of knowledge in a crowded class would be lesser. Not all students are given the chance to participate and teachers are not able to monitor the performance of students individually," explained Dr. Lucila Bance, department head of Guidance and Counseling at the University of Sto. Tomas. Poor ventilation is another problem, causing students to feel uncomfortable in class and distracted during lessons. Classroom management is also more difficult for teachers handling bigger classes. “How the teacher handles classes helps remedy the situation," Luistro said. Barlao and her faculty members prepare modules, and encourage group teaching and remedial classes for slow-learners. “Modules are brought home by students to encourage home-study because not everything can be discussed in school given the crowd that we have," said EBNS’s Barlao. Call for durable classrooms The World Bank report pointed out that the country needs more than just additional classrooms, saying “resilience should be built into repair and reconstruction to ensure continuity of education even during disaster situations" More classrooms are likely to incur damage,, according to My Shelter’s Diaz, unless sturdier structures like the plastic bottle school are built. “With climate change, more and more classrooms will be destroyed and with heavy flooding the walls will collapse." School location is also important. A study by MyShelter showed many schools were built in flood-prone areas. “Half of all the classrooms are built… [in] disaster areas. Residential houses stand [at] a higher point while schools lie on lower grounds because these are cheaper," Diaz explained. Innovations like the Bottle School help meet the country’s classroom requirements. However, the DepEd needs a collaborative effort in the community to meet the shortfall. On top of an existing contract with the DepEd to shoulder part of construction costs, local government units are allocating more money to build more schools. “This year we have signed agreements with the Leagues of Cities, of Municipalities, and of Provinces for fifty-fifty cost-sharing in the construction of classrooms in public schools allowing us to build more classrooms with the allocation they [give]," Luistro said. The department also receives grants from foreign donor agencies such as the World Bank, AusAID, USAID, and Spain’s AECID. Adopt-a-School Program The public-private partnership is also expected to alleviate the classroom shortage. In 2010, private partners of the DepEd committed a total of P95 million for classroom construction and rehabilitation. DepEd is expanding the donor base for the Adopt-a-School Program. Corporations, organizations, and individuals under the program can assist a school of their choice anywhere in the country. Help may be given in the form of funding for infrastructure development, supplies, stipends, and technology support, and health and literacy programs. In return, a donor receives tax incentives from the government. From P400 million worth of pledges since it was launched in 2006, the program generated P7.3 billion worth of commitments as of 2009. It has since become the DepEd’s second biggest resource-generating mechanism next to its annual budget. The country’s new generation of outstanding students can only be developed in schools with enough classrooms that foster an environment conducive to learning. In that sense, building a classroom is building the nation’s future. – MRT/JE/VS/HS, GMA News