Old ambulance becomes a lifeline to learning in Tarlac

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VEHICLE OF KNOWLEDGE | The G-iRIDE is a mobile classroom that is designed to reach the remotest areas in the country to aid students.
 

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TARLAC CITY, Tarlac, Philippines —bJhonrey delos Santos, a 21-year-old farmworker, will no longer miss school while devoting his time to harvesting sugarcane or drying palay in his village of Don Basilio in Gerona, Tarlac.

Delos Santos, a Grade 9 pupil of the government’s Alternative Learning System (ALS), has been attending classes aided by an ambulance of the local government that has been repurposed into a mobile classroom.

Equipped with a solar-powered 50-inch television set, the transportable classroom is the first mobile classroom to operate in the Central Luzon region. Dubbed the G-iRIDE (Gerona Innovative Roving Interactive Instructional Materials for Diverse Educational Needs), the roaming classroom is designed to serve ALS learners who attend classes twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday.

It also has a Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly-Operated Kiosk Stations software, an offline digital library that teachers could access.Since the classes are held for just two days a week, the students still have time to show up at their respective jobs.

About 500 ALS students who signed up for the program initially received lessons from teachers who used an Interactive Multimedia Teaching Aid that screens visual presentations when necessary.

The television itself is an innovation developed by Tarlac State University’s Center for Solar and Emerging Technologies and is shockproof, waterproof, and durable enough to withstand disasters. It also has speakers and a small library for both learners and teachers.

Breadwinner

Delos Santos said he stopped attending formal schooling for two years in order to concentrate on earning. He comes from a broken family, and his responsibilities to his siblings grew when his parents had separated.

“My mother is at home while my father works as a house painter,” he said.

The eldest in a brood of seven, Delos Santos aspires to earn a college degree, but the hard life left him pushing for a technical-vocational course on welding instead so he could land jobs abroad.

“Life has been difficult so I stopped school. I take on off jobs like drying palay. I get paid per kilo and I am capable of drying 500 kilos of palay to get food on our table. That is why ALS has been helpful. When I complete senior high school I could look for better work. If I didn’t have this tattoo, I would have signed up in the Army,” Delos Santos said.

He added: “We get by, but getting better opportunities is of course better when you have an education. I can work while attending classes.”

Delos Santos’ friend, 19-year-old Jun Labasan Jr., stopped attending school in 2019 due to an ailment. Once his health condition improved, Labasan chose to help his father, who is a farmer. Like Delos Santos, he also dreams of working abroad, preferably as an overseas farmer who earns better than agricultural workers in the Philippines.

Labasan said he wanted to improve his English so he could work in other countries.

“I now have a notebook and other school items. But I feel a little embarrassed joining classroom sessions at my age,” he said in a telephone interview.

“But I am excited about learning with a TV set. I learn faster when I watch lessons broadcast on TV. I will have fun learning, especially about English. Plus, I save on transport expenses because the classroom comes to me,” Labasan added.

 

 

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1852173/old-ambulance-becomes-a-lifeline-to-learning-in-tarlac#ixzz8HcRHgmb6