Adaptive capacities to floods of public schools in the municipalities of Bay and Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

Floods have caused problems on the education sector. The study was done to: (1) determine the relationship between rainfall and floods events; (2) describe the impacts of floods on the delivery of education services and the schooling of children; (3) examine the adaptation measures employed by schools; (4) determine the factors that influenced their adaptation to floods; (5) assess School Adaptive Capacity Index (SACI); and (6) develop guidelines to improve resilience of the cooperating schools. Climate, lake water level data, and existing records on past flood events were gathered and analyzed. Surveys with teachers were administered. Key Informant Interviews and Focused Group Discussions were also conducted. Rainfall parameters were possibility correlated with depth and duration of floods. However, destruction of watersheds, occupancy and unsound development of natural waterways and poor waste management were identified as major contributory factors to the occurrence and persistence of floods in the area. Lack of time to finish all lessons, lack of classrooms and teaching materials, poor motivation or concentration of students, and difficulty in preparing lessons were the problems encountered in the delivery of education services. Attendance and class performance were adversely affected while drop-out rate was not affected by floods contrary to previous studies. Teachers and school heads from flooded and non-flooded but affected schools employed all possible measures they can, given their capabilities and limited resource. Preferences were on proactive measures like assigning of school disaster management teams, securing equipment and materials in the second floor rooms, and improving students' awareness on climate related hazards. Scheduling classes in shifts, conducting home visitations, make-up, remedial and tutorial sessions were among the many other measures used. Tagumpay Elementary School restored their classroom with flood resilient fixtures through cooperative efforts. The school-based management approach, the Bayanihan and Damayan spirit among Filipinos were among the facilitating factors while lack of funds, schools obliged to serve as evacuation centers and poor implementation of environmental laws were among the constraining factors in adapting to floods. High schools have higher SACI with better human and physical assets due to more matured students more elevated classrooms and more means of receiving information than elementary school. SACI of school groups were basically the same. Guidelines recommended to improve flood-resilience of public schools were based on the nature of floods, its impacts on education, the adaptations used and factors affecting adaptation and differences in adaptive capacity. The study recommends the use of existing simple but effective practices and the measures suggested by the study participants directed to DepEd [Department of Education] and LGUs [local government units] to increase flood-resilience by building up adaptive capacity of schools that include the construction of flood resilient school buildings and permanent evacuation centers, continuous capacity building of school personnel, fostering cooperation with stakeholders and different agencies, developing a more responsive curriculum and providing higher budget for schools , among others.