IT IS NOW the last week of August and Department of Education (DepEd) secretary Leonor Briones insisted that to save the school year we should now open our classes, afraid that our children will be left further behind if they take a furlough from school this year.
The so-called Distance Learning which was the subject of our article of Aug. 11, 2020 will now be applied and implemented.
We do not know if we are prepared for this new teaching method, as many of our students, especially in the rural areas, are not equipped with computers.
Sen. Ralph Recto who became concerned of this problem said “the rush in our preparation to meet the new requirements of online or blended teaching is spotty at best. He cited one example: the mess in the need to print self-learning modules (SLM) for 21.5 million public school students, which could reach around 100 billion pages.
“My low-end estimate,” he continued, “is about 93.6 billion pages. That is about 1,500 times the 61 million ballots we printed during the last elections and enough to gift-wrap all the classrooms in the country.
Printing and distributing the instructional materials has been farmed out to the schools – forcing teachers to scrounge for every available printer in their locality — at the cost of P1 per page in most areas, or at least P93.6 billion for this school year,” Recto said.
DepEd designs the modules and are downloaded by the teachers for printing weekly. What happens is that the teachers often end up digging from their own pockets to cover printing cost.
Recto said the printing of learning modules has become a “cottage industry” in all towns. One student alone will need about 10 reams of paper, or 5,000 pages per year.
This so-called Distance Learning turns out to be a very costly teaching method from printing cost alone!
Is Congress aware of this messy educational system in our country today? This is something they should look into. The poor families cannot afford this photocopying teaching method.
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GEM OF THOUGHT
“Always remember, my heart holds you when my mind cannot.”
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