EDITORIAL — Safe learning spaces

As of yesterday, handheld metal detectors were being retailed online for prices ranging from P451 to over P16,000 each.

Walk-through metal detectors, meanwhile, including portable, collapsible versions, were also on offer for prices ranging from over P24,000 to P386,000 per unit.

Surely the national or local governments can spare funds to procure at least one metal detector for use in every public school, to speed up the checking of bags for dangerous metal items such as guns and knives.

Schools will also have to secure campus perimeters, through walls or barricades that can’t be easily breached, and strictly regulate entry and exit into the campus.

These are measures that can be quickly implemented in the wake of the shooting rampage last Monday that left three students dead and at least 20 others wounded at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City.

The shooters – two Grade 9 students aged 15 and 14 – reportedly entered their school by jumping over a fence. They entered a building unchallenged and fired away at random.

Police said the 15-year-old fired one shot from a .38-caliber revolver while the 14-year-old unleashed over 30 shots from a 9mm pistol owned by his policewoman aunt who had taught him how to use guns.

The shooting rampage came on the heels of another violent incident, this time in a private school in General Trias, Cavite, wherein a 14-year-old girl entered a classroom and stabbed and wounded seven students, two of whom required surgery.

In the wake of these incidents, the Department of Education is embarking on a school safety campaign that will include the procurement of metal detectors for public schools and a more aggressive effort to prevent and respond to cases of bullying.

Similar measures must be implemented in higher education institutions, which are not under DepEd, and even in kiddie or playschools operated by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Child welfare advocates have stressed that there are multiple factors, often tangled together in a complex web, which fuel violence in schools. These factors are not easily addressed, but there are doable ways of improving security and protecting learners, educators and school personnel from armed violence.

In the wake of the recent attacks carried out by students, every effort must be made to restore schools as safe spaces for learning.