Class act: Shipping company donates containers to build school

You've heard of box tops for education. But what about boxes for education? It turns out that boxes, or ocean containers, are being used to construct schools in developing countries, including a multi-story facility in the Philippines that's said to be the largest school built from containers in the world.

The Philippine Christian Foundation (PCF) recently celebrated the opening of the Philippine Technical College, a four-story facility built from cargo containers supplied by NOL Group, the Singapore-based shipping and logistics company, and its subsidiary APL. The new school houses 1,000 students from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Manila. It offers classes from pre-school through high school as well as vocational courses. The foundation's primary objective is to use education to bring an end to child labor at the nearby Smokey Mountain dump site.

NOL Group donated 53 containers to PCF and subsidized the purchase of 26 more. All of the containers were sheathed in concrete for extra strength and stability. The company also sponsored a classroom for students and shipped three 40-foot containers of building materials to Manila to assist in the school's construction.