Apart from a few universities that shifted their calendar to August, the new school year will start for public elementary and high school in a few days. Nothing much has changed as student-teacher and student-classroom ratios have not improved. We expect worse in Yolanda-devastated areas where even basic housing needs have not been addressed yet.

Classrooms are scarce, but the situation for science laboratories is even worse. The Department of Education reports a serious lack of science laboratories in both elementary and high schools all over the country. According to DepEd data, in regions III, IV-A, X, XI, and XII, only one school has a science laboratory out of every 10 public elementary schools. In the National Capital region, this ratio is 3 laboratories for every 10 elementary schools. The public elementary schools in the other regions don’t have any science laboratory to facilitate science learning.