Constructing school buildings will not be so much of a problem for the Philippines anymore as the Department of Education (DepEd) formally adopted a more sustainable, alternative method for building various school structures.
Recently, DepEd has announced its acceptance of the Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (BERDE) system conceptualized by the Philippines Green Building Council as the standard for projects that not only tackle the educational needs of Filipino students but also encourages people to be ecologically- responsive.
BERDE, which used to cover only residential and office space developments are now also incorporating classrooms as well as other educational facilities in its designs for green buildings.
The system takes into consideration a particular structure’s level of performance in terms of energy use efficiency, waste disposal, available open space and also the disaster preparedness of the building.
However, DepEd emphasized that the school buildings that are to be built according to the standards of BERDE should also comply with DepEd’s guidelines. It pointed out that green school buildings should be able to encourage the use of different on-site renewable energy that can help reduce various environmental as well as economic impacts that are brought about by the use of fossil fuels.
DepEd believes that green schools can have a huge positive impact on the students’ health, grades, teachers’ performance as well as on the school operational costs.
Moreover, it said that going “green” can be really cost effective, as the savings that it can generate can be enough to hire two new teachers, buy 200 new computers or purchase 5,000 new textbooks.
