"They have to assist their children while also doing their regular work."
"They have to assist their children while also doing their regular work."
Poor internet signal and lack of digital gadgets did not douse the burning desire of mostly poor 24.4 million students to get back to school work, though off-campus, under the “blended learning” system being implemented by the Department of Education (DepEd).
After months of repeated public appeals to the telecommunications companies to provide improved internet and telephone services, the first day saw virtual classes experiencing difficulties in connectivity and none at all in a number of areas.
Students had to trek to hills and mountains while teachers had to get on top of the roof of school buildings to catch a signal.
Anticipating such a problem, DepEd officials prepared massive printed modules for distribution to those students without access to the internet or those who cannot afford smartphones, laptops or tablets.
As we mark the first week of the new approach to basic education, also called “distance learning,” we should give credit to the leadership of Education Secretary Leonor Briones. Hers is an uncompromising commitment to fulfill the state’s constitutional mandate to provide public education.
This early, we salute the parents who are now the key figures in the learning process as teachers cannot yet have face-to-face interaction with the students amid the public health crisis.
Where teachers used to substitute for parents of students at school, parents now practically have to fill the shoes of the teachers.
To ensure that not one child is left behind, the overwhelming responsibility falls on the parents who not only serve as the conduit between the students and the teachers but also the children’s tutor, counselor, proctor and supervisor.
Owing to their vital role in the children’s education in this pandemic crisis, parents may now be called the new frontliners.
Parents may lack the teaching skills and the current parent-teacher partnership positively serves as an opportunity to grow.
Unfortunately for a number of parents, the time and effort demanded of them in helping their children with their modules means time and effort taken away from work and livelihood.
The government, through the DepEd, should look into ways of extending financial assistance to families whose parents have to give up their day job to attend to their children’s class modules.
Meantime, the scenario of distance learning or school-from-home also exposes the irrelevance of the elitist K-12 program which the previous administration haphazardly implemented to introduce vocational training through an additional two years in high school.
The Congress, as well as the DepEd, should review and evaluate the K-12 program which has produced a generation of poor performing and academically incompetent students.
And while Congress is embroiled in a power struggle and virtually holding hostage next year’s national budget that may affect public education and the war on COVID, we can only hope that the Duterte administration finds a way to support and boost DepEd’s distance learning program.
This, while we wait for the COVID-19 crisis to be over.