Double shifts for junior high school students

CEBU, Philippines - Classes for junior high schools in the province are seen to be affected by the lack of classrooms for senior high school, which will begin next month.

 Nenita Jaralve, Cebu Provincial Schools Division coordinator, said "double shifts" or a dual shift system will have to be implemented among students in junior high school to address the problem. This means one group of students will occupy the classroom during the day and a second group later in the day.

 "Kuwang classroom so mag-double shifts ta for ju-nior high school aron makagamit ilang classrooms for senior high school. That's plan B for all the school," Jaralve said during yesterday's Kapistorya sa Kapitolyo media forum. 

The purpose of a double shift school is to allow more students to attend classes without having to build another building. Another reason is to accommodate senior high school while their classrooms are still being constructed.

 "They (junior high school) will be affected in the sense that they will be occupying the same classroom," Jaralve said.

 Jaralve said this is the "catch-up plan" of the school heads so as not to hamper classes in both junior and senior high school.

 DepEd is targeting 1,038 new classrooms for Cebu Province for senior high school. Only 371 classrooms have been built, so far.

 Engineer April Custodio of the Cebu Provincial Schools Division said at least 641 are still being constructed, while construction of 60 others is yet to begin. Ten classrooms will no longer be built as these have been "realigned" to a high-rise building owing to space constraints and dense student population.

The shortage of classrooms remains a persistent problem that teachers, parents, and students said need to be addressed first.

 Custodio said bidding requirements contributed to the delay in the construction. Location is also an issue because a private company is also donating classrooms.

She said all classrooms, including those for Grade 12, would be completed by October this year. The construction of Grade 11 classrooms has been prioritized.

 Capitol has spent P39.5 million for the construction of school buildings in 32 towns in Cebu.

 At least 27 classrooms were also constructed in partnership with the provincial government and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. A unit costs about P16.19 million. Of the amount, the province shouldered P7.6 million while RAFI shouldered P8.6 million. — (FREEMAN)