Unnecessary luxury

As soon as the education authorities in Sichuan issued an order that ostentation be avoided in the design and landscaping of schools rebuilt in the regions struck by the earthquake on May 12 last year, there was criticism that it was too late.

It was, indeed, belated advice, if not a mere gesture as some labeled it. The same had been said nearly a year ago by the ministries of education and construction and the National Development and Reform Commission.

In their jointly promulgated guiding principles for post-earthquake school rebuilding, the three ordered that in the rebuilding and maintenance of schools, priority should be given to safety while preventing waste at the same time.

Collapsed school buildings claimed a heavy toll in the devastating earthquake, resulting in concerns about school building safety. Building quality and quake-resistant classrooms has thus seen a broad consensus in post-disaster rebuilding.

The guiding principles, as expected, promised to make sure school buildings are safe, solid, and reassuring.

In addition to ensuring that new school buildings are strong enough to stand earthquakes comparable to those that flattened the Wenchuan area, the city of Chengdu went one step further, offering schools as safe havens for the general public should a similar disaster strike.

Some say inferior quality was an obvious accomplice, if not the killer, in the tragedies on campuses in the disaster zone. Given the tragic loss of lives, no one would question the emphasis on building quality.

But thanks in a large part to the central authorities' one-on-one aid program, pairing each locality in the disaster region up with a city or province outside of Sichuan, rebuilding has been quick and efficient.

So much so that a great majority of schools damaged or destroyed in the havoc have already reopened for the new school term. That is why the warning against luxury is considered redundant.

From the outside, we cannot tell if the new schools are solid enough to live up to the promises and expectations concerning quality. We need expert opinion on that. But the brand-new buildings do, in some places, exhibit signs of luxury.

Not that schools cannot be beautiful, or a little more than austere. But, once safety standards are satisfied, we would rather see more resources, donations and government allocations alike, earmarked for raising the quality of teaching in those schools.

And even within the disaster zones, there are less-known schools in need of assistance yet more or less neglected just because they were not the hardest hit and thus got less public attention.

In spite of the more-than-one-year time lag, we would like to see the Sichuan decree work in the rest of the rebuilding process, as long as it facilitates reasonable distribution of precious resources.

(China Daily 11/18/2009 page8)