MANILA: Fourth-grader Ella Araza sat on a tiny plastic box in her Manila slum home, trying to finish her homework before the afternoon sun sent temperatures soaring to unbearable levels.
The Philippines shut down more than 47,000 schools nationwide from Monday, as the temperature in Manila crossed a record high, clocking 38.8 degrees Celsius at the weekend. Over 7,000 were still closed on Thursday, including 10-year-old Ella’s elementary school in the capital. Many schools in the tropical country have no air conditioning and students must sweat it out in poorly ventilated classrooms but conditions at Baseco, Manila’s infamous docklands slum, are even more desperate.
Several doors down, sixth-grader Jalian Mangampo and her younger brother Sherwin lie on their shared single bed and try to finish their schoolwork on mobile phones.The online lessons do not come cheap – the siblings have to drop five pesos into a neighbour’s WiFi vending machine to gain three hours of internet access.
The state weather service has warned the extreme heat will persist for the next two weeks at least, meaning the students could be mostly stuck at home before the school year ends on May 31.
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