Repairs on 259 cyclone-battered schools slated for completion by end of August

By Admin 04 Aug 2023

DMG Newsroom
4 August 2023, Sittwe
 
Among 1,538 public schools damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Mocha in Arakan State, repair works for 259 are expected to be completed by the end of August, according to U Ba Htwee Sein, director of the Arakan State education office.
 
“Out of 1,538 public schools damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Mocha across 10 townships, 1,279 schools have been repaired so far,” he added.
 
Those figures are subsets of the 3,197 public schools in the 10 townships in Arakan State, which also suffered extensive damage to homes, shops and infrastructure when Cyclone Mocha struck on May 14.
 
A primary school in Donpaik Village, Rathedaung Township, has not been repaired more than two months after the storm made landfall over Arakan State, though some tarpaulin sheets were received from the township education officer’s office, according to locals.
 
“The classroom is low-lying, so when it rains, the water gets in,” said Daw Phyo Su Wai, a schoolteacher there. “And there is no light, so it is dark. As the classrooms were also damaged by the storm, we face difficulties in teaching the children.”
 
There are also schools where students have been divided into two groups to attend class because repair works on their damaged buildings have not yet been completed.
 
“Damaged school buildings have yet to be repaired,” said a female teacher at a middle school with about 160 students in Thayetpingyi Village, Mrauk-U Township, who did not want to be named. “It is not convenient to teach children when it rains. When it rains, we teach the children under umbrellas. Children often get sick and have runny noses because of the wetness.”
 
Damaged schools in some urban areas and villages are still being repaired, the Arakan State military council acknowledged on July 28, though it insisted that the buildings are still being used and the pace of teaching has not slowed.
 
As of July 31, there were 569,933 students enrolled in Arakan State, according to the state education director’s office.