Lapus wants Zambo’s best practices in education replicated nationwide
Education Secretary has recommended to all communities nationwide to replicate Zamboanga City’s Operation 10-Rs or Recycle, Repair, Refurbish, Restore, Remodel, Repaint, Renew, Redistribute and Reuse, as a best practice to maximize scrap materials that can be reused to construct new school furniture.
Lapus made the recommendation in a press statement issued recently by his office, citing the Operation 10-Rs as a “model not only for public schools but for everyone to maximize our limited resources.”
The education secretary specifically thanked Mayor Celso Lobregat for spearheading Operation 10-Rs. “This is the best way to avoid wastage of resources that will benefit most of all our public schools,” Lapus said of the project launched last summer with the support of DepEd Regional Office 9, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Commission on Audit (COA).
The Operation 10-Rs has so far produced more than 1,000 recycled armchairs and desks from almost 5,000 scrap metals and wooden materials, some of them had already been distributed to the different elementary and secondary schools in the city. Works on the remaining scraps are still ongoing at the Zamboanga City State Polytechnic College (ZCSPC), one of the academic institutions involved in the project.
“This is not only a best practice on how to use limited resources efficiently, but also a perfect example of community participation in education,” Lapus said in a recent DepEd press statement, as he also commended the business and civic groups and academic institutions that have united their efforts to stop wastage of existing resources in schools.
Other benefactors are Western Mindanao State University, Zamboanga State College of Marine Sciences and Technology, Zamboanga Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Industrial Group of Zamboanga, Los Contratistas de la Ciudad de Zamboanga, Southern Philippines Deep Sea Fishing Association, and the Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Under the memorandum of understanding entered into by the participating government agencies, business group and academic institutions, the city government of Zamboanga and TESDA provide the manpower and needed equipment such as welding apparatus and carpentry tools. The public schools together with participating colleges and universities provide the scrap metals.
Concerned COA offices conduct inventory of unusable scrap materials from various public schools. Business groups involved in Operation 10-Rs donate construction materials, lend carpentry tools and finance the initiative.
“This undertaking is timely since it promotes efficient use of existing resources in a time of economic crisis. And we thank our partners in the private sector for helping augment the existing school furniture in our public schools,” Lapus further said. (Sheila Covarrubias/Vic Larato)