In an interview with DepEd-7 regional director Salustiano Jimenez, it was mentioned that even through the pandemic, the Philippines was able to adapt well. Through the efforts of the Government and the partnership of public and private sectors, especially with the heavy involvement of the Local Government Units, preparation for online learning or the new normal in terms of education has really stepped up.
Parents and teachers alike really put efforts in getting their children accustomed to the online classes and other forms of learning modalities. He also said that school children have become more eager to continue their education since the modern generation are really adept at using existing and emerging technologies.
As he mentioned, according to DepEd’s records, a total of 1,988,000 enrollees in Cebu for the school year 2021-2022 has been captured and that there is an expectation that this number will increase in the coming days due to the fact that some private schools are closing due to the economic effects brought upon by the pandemic.
Jimenez also said that the teachers are now well-equipped with the necessary teaching materials and skills, which includes laptops, cellular phones, printers, and more intensive collaboration with LGUs.
In Cebu, Jimenez said that the region’s 19 school divisions’ modules are already printed and available for consumption by the students for the first two quarters of the school year. DepEd central office has also begun distributing the modules for the 3rd quarter of the year.
It is also truly a huge progress in the City of Mandaue that the local government has issued tablets to the students and teachers. This will surely ramp up the effectiveness of online studies since a tablet has a bigger screen and probably a bigger speaker which improves the overall experience of the students.
A good part in this initiative is that modules can be done even offline. A way to do this is to use flash drives through which the notes, the tests, the activities and worksheets can be saved and later on transferred to their teachers.
As of Monday, September 13, the reports issued by DepEd actually reached a record high of 24.6 million on the first day of classes across the nation. There are 18.5 million enrollees in public schools while there are 1.4 million students enrolled in private schools. It is also worth mentioning that under the Alternative Learning System (ALS) program, there were a total of 198,297 enrollees.
This success can be mirrored in Education Secretary’s message:
“DepEd and the rest of the country celebrate with great joy a success in opening classes for the second year in the time of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Last year, we opened classes and we successfully ended [the school year]. And now we are opening another school year. Isn’t that success worthy of celebration in the light of all our challenges?”
“We are ready as we can be within the availability of information, within the expertise which we have access to. And we have learned – it’s not as if we’ll repeat the same situations which we had to contend with. We have learned and we are responding,” she added.
While the Department of Education is cheering and celebrating this success to a huge turnout of students who enrolled in this school year, a group of teachers held a protest rally to raise their concerns for an “underfunded distance learning”. This group of teachers are members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT).
Today, we will be forced into another school year of the underfunded and ill-equipped distance learning, with still no plans from the government on how it can safely reopen our school nor on how it will address the grave issues hounding DepEd’s learning continuity plan. We refuse to allow Duterte‘s indifference to our plight and DepEd’s utter disregard for the welfare of its constituents continue to reign. As state abandonment peaks, we have no one else to turn to but each other. The future of our youth and their right to accessible quality education now lies on the collective resolve of teachers, parents, and students to say ‘no more’ and demand better”, ACT Secretary-General Raymond Basilio commented. In their protest, the teachers also demanded the release of their overtime pay and service credits for public school teachers.
The class suspensions from the start of the pandemic, to the worsening scenario until today greatly impacted the progress of the students. This, in turn, lengthens their stay in school. Such delay on the graduation of students from Elementary to College will surely affect our labor force. Imagine a country where there are no fresh graduates to which employers can pull out their manpower, and where the students have developed anxiety, depression, and negative feelings due to delays in their career paths.
Good thing that education in the Philippines has evolved greatly during the pandemic. This is in response to the need to progress and thrive through the pandemic and make sure that our students are not left behind in their studies. A variety of online learning platforms are now being utilized across schools in the country. Some of these are Canvass and Google Classrooms, two of the largest platforms being utilized by students right now. These platforms help students and teachers alike to work together and be more productive, collaborate easier, and track performance conveniently than ever before.
It might take some time before the pandemic loses its grip over the world. However, the world will still need to continue moving forward and devise ways on how to make things work for the better. The world will never be the same again and rapid technological advances, online learning, remote work, all these things will surely be here to stay. It is up to us to really adapt well and grasp the tools and methodologies available to us and help others who don’t have access to them. In another way, we could think that this opens boundless possibilities for us. More work is now available online, which means earning and work can be done from home. With this, we can fight back.
