All her life, Zenaida Gahaton desired nothing more than to teach. As a result, because of Ms. Gahaton's dedication to teaching, it came as no surprise that she eventually became a principal of San Miguel Elementary School in La Carlota City in Negros Oriental.

Although she has always relished that familiar sensation of helping open young minds to the wealth offered by learning year after year, she wish of being able to reach out to more children, especially those living in huts out in the sugarcane fields of La Carlota City.

In her experience, as related to BusinessWorld, a considerable number of her pupils attended classes for only two to three times a week as the school was located five kilometers away. The roads were dusty in the summer and muddy in the rainy season - students, some as young as four and five years old, had to walk the whole way. The only other way to get to school was onboard a special trip on a tricycle, something they can never afford.

Because of this situation, going to school for most of the kids living outside the barrio proper was a tedious and time-consuming affair. If their basic education was compromised, these children faced bleak futures in an already-tight labor market.

But that was before the Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines, Inc. (CCFPI) came into the. Working with the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS), the foundation learned that there was a dire and desperate need for a schoolhouse in the middle of sugarcane fields. So after an assessment, CCFPI built one, in partnership with the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), which managed the construction and took care of community training.

The schoolhouse construction is a part of CCFPI's Little Red Schoolhouse Project (LRSP), the foundation's response to the country's severe classroom shortage. With $1.85 million funded by Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines and equally supported by the Coca-Cola Company Philippines Division and Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc. and with an additional $500,000 grant from the United States' Coca-Cola foundation, the LRSP intends to build and equip 50 three-classroom school buildings within a five-year period from 1998-2002.

Currently, some 13 schoolhouses have been erected all throughout the country since 1998 and seven more will be constructed. Five new LRS will be officially turned over to the Philippine government today. But for the CCFPI, erecting a classroom is just the beginning. The LRSP also supports the Philippine Multi-Grade Education Program, which is endorsed by the United Nations International Children's Educational Fund (UNICEF) by providing permanent school buildings and essential classroom equipment to public and under-served areas in the country.

The multi-grade system of teaching involves two or three grade levels being taught simultaneously in the same classroom and by the same teacher.