It's been raining here for quite a week already. Rainy days that will make us feel just rather stay at home and go idle while staring outside our window pane as the rain falls gently, than do outdoor activities. Rainy season has a lot of stories to tell. Times when heavy traffic is ever present on highways, when it's just really hard for ordinary laborers to get a ride from work back to their homes, and when students in some remote areas will have to cross muddy pathways inorder to get reach to their individual destination.
I remember a story from a very good friend of mine who is a public school teacher in one of the far-flung areas here in Mindanao. In one of our conversations, she shared to me how their class’ schedule would go esp. during rainy days. And that the students will have to beg to the teacher to dismiss them early because they already see the sky filled with gray clouds that signal the coming of the rain. They don’t wanna be caught by the heavy rain simply because they still have to walk a great distance from school to their houses. Some even have to cross rivers.There are no means of transportation always available for them aside from the fact that their allowance during the day is not even enough to buy their snacks and school projects. And then my friend added that sometimes she will have to understand when the next day, some of her students are already absent because of the bad weather.
The story appears to be so primitive to me.Because this is the kind of tell-tale that I often hear from old folks when education was yet fully developed during the ancient times.I never thought that even up to this present time, when education has really laddered and the cities have developed and yet it's surprising to realize that the tale of our grandparents is still existing.
It's just too hard to imagine that if it rains all the time in their area, we cannot expect from our learners to be globally competitive if the classroom setting appears to be this way. And so I personally wish to address the issue to their local government to take a closer look of it.
Gone are the days of our great grandparents when they had to walk longer distance and cross rivers because the city was still undeveloped. We are now living in a generation where technology rises so swiftly even without our notice. Humans have grown to be geniuses. And so while we continue rising so many high buildings in our cities and develop our commerce and industries, let us also not forget our future builders , our learners, esp. those in remote places. They too need concrete highways and a much more developed area by providing them somehow a means of transportation so they can safely travel back to their homes esp. on rainy season.
Education should not remain a privilege because the moneyed and the powerful can afford to send their children to exclusive schools within the city, but for those living in the remote areas who can only see hope that their children can finish their studies even when they go to public schools....EDUCATION must remain a RIGHT.
