Philippines flood victims, children want schools

Terra Daily via AFP: Flood evacuees and pupils competed for space in southern Philippine schools Wednesday, with both wanting to use the buildings following the Christmas break, officials said.

In some cases, survivors of last month's floods from Tropical Storm Washi were moved to alternative shelters as children returned to schoolhouses that had been used as evacuation centres.

But in other instances, hundreds of the evacuees refused to leave, forcing school officials to find novel ways of conducting classes.

In one school in Cagayan de Oro, it was the students who had to move to tents because the storm victims refused to vacate their classrooms, said district school official Shirley Merida.

"We will have to hold these sessions inside the tents since all of our classrooms still have evacuees living in them. We cannot just drive them away," she said...