The schools here face a challenge: High school will no longer end at 10 years, but now they have added two years to be equal to the US system of K to 12.
The Manila Bulletin notes this is not the first time that teachers faced a challenge: During World War II, many schools were shut down, and then Manila was destroyed in the fighting, with many killed accidentally in the crossfire by shells (and alas many massacred by the departing Japanese in anger and revenge). (Something to remember when you read about "civilian casualties" when Fallujah etc are liberated).
so anyway, how do you reopen schools when many school buildings were destroyed, and many were filled with refugees?
Manila Bulletin story here from the memoirs of Juan C Laya
On Feb. 20, with cannon still firing, the Secretary of Instruction and Information handed R40 to the 33-year-old Laya and ordered him to open a high school.
“My school was to be set up on nothing—no school building, no desks, no teachers, no books, no janitors, no money, nothing at all. There was only myself, as acting principal preferred over more experienced men because I had not collaborated with the Japs.”
North Manila’s three high schools—Arellano, Mapa, and Torres—were filled with refugees and, after three days of searching, Laya succeeded in getting one semester’s use of nine classrooms at Bonifacio Elementary School on Tayuman Street. In three weeks’ time, Manila High School was born with 25 teachers and 832 students.
Read more at http://www.mb.com.ph/class-opening-1945/#KPjvSjG88K2RXF7T.99
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