In less than two months, School Year 2020-2021 shall commence despite\nthe rising cases of COVID-19. With no clear indication yet that all systems are\nin place, public and private schools across the country are in varying stages\nof preparation for the \u201cnew normal\u201d of education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As educators, we know the difficulties of implementing changes given a\nshort period of time, relying primarily on our initiative and ingenuity to get\nthings done for our learners. Parents and families are also grappling with\neconomic uncertainties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, we call on the Department of Education (DepEd) to consider\npostponing the new school year to the first quarter of 2021 or January at the\nearliest, while using the period from July to December 2020 to extend\npreparations and help bridge stakeholders over present challenges towards a\nmore responsive education system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EFD shares in\nthe objective of ensuring the right and access to education of Filipino\nlearners, and believes that learning should continue despite the pandemic. But\nwe cannot support any rushed implementation without ensuring the maximum\nsupport to the three most important stakeholders \u2013 teachers, learners and\nparents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why an extension?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We submit the\nfollowing advantages of extending preparations through a 6-month bridge period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. This can be\nused to fully prepare the needed infrastructure to train teachers and orient\nparents and learners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. This can allow\nstudents to further review and hone their understanding of the concepts learned\nin previous school years. They can read in advance on concepts across future\ngrade level subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. This can give\nDepEd enough time to review the K-12 curriculum, and possibly replace this with\na more people-centered and progressive curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rushed continuity\nplan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The DepEd only\nreleased the Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP) this May, with\nbarely three months for teachers and school officials to prepare before the\nAugust 24 opening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We remember the\ndifficulties we faced in orienting and training to implement the K-12\nCurriculum, but the situation at hand is far more daunting. Forced by the\npandemic, the public education system for the first time shall employ distance\nlearning on a wide-scale \u2013 through a combination of modular, online-based and\nradio\/TV-based instruction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The EFD lists\ndown the following concerns with the BE-LCP:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. The DepEd\nstates that there are 900,000 regular personnel employed in the public school\nsystem, including 800,000 teachers, while there are 300,000 private school\nteachers and personnel. Starting this July, public school teachers will be\nrequired to report to office physically. There is no clarity whether the\nequipment and infrastructure for minimum health standards such as protective\ngears, disinfectant, detection, isolation and treatment facilities have been\ninstalled in schools. We expect that the national government shall allot funds\nto subsidize these provisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In relation to\nthis, we join the increasing calls of various sectors for greater State support\nfor both public and private school teachers through sustained wage subsidies\nand other mechanisms at this time of disrupted incomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. The DepEd says\nthat in areas where face-to-face classes will be allowed, the class size shall\nbe reduced to 15-20 learners to ensure physical distancing. We are concerned\nabout the implementability of this measure in terms of scheduling and space\nconsidering lingering classroom shortages in public and smaller private\nschools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. The DepEd\nadmits that only 2% of total learners in public schools have access to laptops\nor tablets, while only 48% of public schools have internet connection. We share\nin the public\u2019s growing concern as to whether online-based learning will\nactually work. The national government needs to provide increased funds to\nsecure free wifi and technical assistance to teachers and students, and ensure\nconnectivity especially in underserved areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. The DepEd\nadmits that there are key operational challenges in the implementation of the\nwider-scale Alternative Delivery Modalities. We educators know that these\nchallenges refer to the lack of training of personnel and uncertainties in the\nprovision of quality learning materials. We are concerned that only 40% of\npublic school teachers had been trained in Information and Communications\nTechnology (ICT) by DepEd according to the Senate Committee on Basic Education,\nwith \u201cmore intensive\u201d trainings only happening this July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. Most importantly, we take exception to the move to reduce or\nstreamline the learning competencies to the \u201cmost essential\u201d without a judicious\nreview of the K-12 curriculum. The EFD stands by its call to overhaul the K-12\nframework and replace it with a nationalist, pro-people, and progressive\ncurriculum, where students learn not individualism and commercialism, but\nsocial consciousness and solidarity. But a problematic curriculum further\nstreamlined means students will be learning even less this school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We reassert the\nneed for a curriculum framework that is nationalist, pro-people and\nprogressive, with renewed emphasis on humanities and social sciences.\nRegardless of platform, whether face-to-face or through distance learning, the\nteaching or instructional content remains the most important in shaping our\nstudents towards being responsible and socially-conscious citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are not\nassured by DepEd saying that \u201cremediation and enhancement activities\u201d shall be\ngiven so no learner will be left behind. With no concrete details yet on the\npromises made in the BE-LCP, we fear that majority of students will definitely\nbe left behind as educators face the most uncertain and rocky school year so\nfar. \n\nLike how DepEd officials ask Senators to give\nthem a chance to implement the new learning plan, we educators ask the same of DepEd\n– to listen to the various concerns being raised and do what is right for\nlearners and their families.\n\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POLICY NOTE<\/p>\n The EFD shares in the objective of ensuring the right and access to education of Filipino learners, and believes that learning should continue despite the pandemic. But we cannot support any rushed implementation without ensuring the maximum support to the three most important stakeholders \u2013 teachers, learners and parents. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":9930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,547,3,2216],"tags":[2199,400,347,318,156,2312,2311,2309,2310],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9933,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929\/revisions\/9933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}