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It was a usual Monday morning for 16-year-old Lee Net, a Khamou ethnic minority who lives in Houymanh village, Phomxay District, Luang Prabang. At 7:00am on May 6th 2013, she started walking to Houymanh school where she is completing her final year of lower secondary school.
The week would begin with English lessons. “We were still learning basic conversation,” she said. “We were supposed to ask our partner how she is, where she’s from and what she does.”
At 9:00am, Mathematics class commenced. As students gathered in groups to discuss math problems, wind making its way through the valley – where the school is situated – grew stronger and louder, causing a bang at every turn along the valley.
“Get out of the classroom now!” Lee Net heard her teacher shout. “Get out now!” The students picked up their bags and ran for the cement building where primary school classes were held. There were over 80 students in the two secondary school classes that evacuated.
“We saw the wooden classrooms shake,” she said. “About 15 minutes later, the whole structure collapsed. No one was hurt.” As rain began to pour down after the storm passed, students were told to go home and return to school the next day as per normal.
“It was very scary to watch my school collapse,” Lee Net said. “It was also very sad because the community built it for us so that we could have a secondary school to attend. It was the fruit of our labour.”
Choice between a poor building structure or no school at all
Mr Toua Nenglueyialao, was the English language teacher that morning. “We were slightly worried about the structure because a storm passed through this valley just three days earlier and caused the building to be slanted,” he said.
Despite having a compromised structure, Mr Toua and his colleagues continued to teach in the classroom. “There were no other options. We were going to try to fix the structure, but we did not expect another storm to come through so soon,” he said. “But we were on alert, so when we heard the storm coming, we knew we had to get the students out of there quickly.”
Phomxay district is home to about 35,000 people, but it had just one lower secondary school. This meant that most of the children graduating from primary school will not have the chance to further their education unless they travel to the next district.
“Seven villages in this district came together last year because they wanted to provide their children with a lower secondary school education. The district office for education gave us tables, chairs, zinc sheets and teachers, but the community was supposed to gather their own building materials and help build the school,” Mr Toua said.
“So the village cluster pooled all the wood they could find together and that was how Houymanh school had a lower secondary school beginning August 2012. We now have over 330 lower secondary school students enrolled here.”
“When we built this school, we planned for it to be a temporary fixture,” said Mr Toua. Although he has no idea how long classes would need to be conducted in the school built by the community, he hopes that the government and aid agencies would help upgrade the school once they see the demand for an additional lower secondary school in the district.
Overcrowded classrooms
The day after the storm, 16-year-old Kam left his home in Tapou Village for school, a 30-minute walk away.
“Even though we had no classroom to study in, I went to school because the teacher told us that we should all go to school as per normal,” he said. “When I arrived, I was sad to see the remains of the school on the field as we worked very hard as a community to build it.”
“The teachers told us to help pull the tables and chairs out of the rubble and to clean it so they could be moved into the other classrooms. More students would have to squeeze into the classrooms that are left.”
About 70 to 80 students now squeeze into a single classroom, twice the volume of students before the school collapsed. Teachers say they hope to rebuild the school over the summer break.
“Students from different grades would now study the same thing, just because they have to be in the same classroom. It is quite disruptive to our learning, especially as we are preparing for our final examinations that are coming up in June,” said Kam.
“I hope to be able to pass the final examination as I want to study some more. My favorite subject is Geography because I like to learn about how our earth works. I hope to become a Geography teacher one day.”
Investing in stronger, safer structures for children
“The community did what they could do to provide a lower secondary school for their children,” said Olivier Franchi, country director for Save the Children in Laos.
“But children should not have to choose between an unsafe school building and an education. They have a right to education and to feel safe in their learning environment.”
This certainly is not an isolated incident. A week before Houymanh school collapsed, the roofs of a primary school in Sayaboury District were blown away by strong wind. Four students were injured in that incident as they were hit by debris.
“The government needs to invest in building safe schools while enforcing guidelines for school construction – one does not work without the other,” said Olivier Franchi. “An assessment of the land for possible local hazards should also be done prior to construction so contractors can build schools that are resilient to those hazards.”
“Additionally, children must undergo evacuation drills and be informed about the possible risks of a school collapsing. As we work towards building safer schools for all children to access education, it is vital that we first ensure the lives of children in potentially unsafe school structures are protected.”
