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By Ernie B. Esconde, Correspondent
ABUCAY, Bataan: Classes on the first day Tuesday
in public elementary schools in Bataan went on regularly, except in
an Aeta resettlement in Bangkal, a mountainous village in Abucay,
Bataan.
While parents as early as 6:00 in the morning
were busy bringing their children to various schools from 11 towns
and one city in the province like for example at the Samal South
Central School in Sta. Lucia, Samal town, there seemed to be little
action at the Bangkal Aeta Resettlement Primary School.
It was almost 7:35 a.m. and yet only a few Aeta
pupils were in the classrooms while the others were sweeping and
cleaning the school grounds. Some Aeta children were seen bathing at
the artesian well near the school while others went to fetch water.
The teachers for the school’s Grades 1 to 5
pupils will be coming from the lowland some 20 kilometers away from
the Aeta village, a volunteer cutting grass at the back of the
school said, noting that passenger jeepneys to the village were
scarce.
Anita Ignacio, district supervisor of schools in
Abucay, explained that some teachers in the town thought that they
were included in the special holiday declared by Mayor Ana Santiago,
June 10 being “Araw ng Abucay.”
Classes from Grades 1 to 6 at the Palili
Elementary School in an upland village in Samal were conducting
regular classes, same with the Tomas Pimpin Memorial Elementary
School in Abucay where Ignacio has her office.
It was observed that in some upland villages
there were 19 to 25 pupils per classroom as compared to 34 to 50
pupils in some elementary schools in the lowlands.
Aeta children dream of becoming schoolteachers
one day, while those from the lowlands have varied desires like
being doctors, nurses, police officers, soldiers and teachers.
The school mentors and the parents had one
answer when asked if children paid school fees before being
enrolled. “Strictly none,” they said.
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