ILOILO City – The Department of Education (DepEd) in Western Visayas will look into the learning gaps of students due to the coronavirus disease pandemic.
“There are schools divisions that have contextualized ways of assessing learning losses. But for this coming school year, I will ask the Policy, Planning and Research Division to take the lead. We will conduct a research,” said DepEd regional director Dr. Ramir Uytico.
The region did not pursue a unified assessment for all 21 schools divisions this school year since each have their own approaches and strategies, he explained.
It would be difficult to conduct a study when learners are still at home, said Uytico, and they were also unsure if the children, not their parents, were the ones answering the modules.
The DepEd official is looking to come up with a clear picture, know the losses and determine how to address the learning gaps.
In a virtual press conference on June 29, Silay City schools division superintendent Ferdinand Sy said an assessment on how far their learners have understood their lessons showed higher results when they were in school than when there was no face-to-face interaction.
Passi City schools division superintendent Jesse Gomez, in the same conference, said that come July 7, they will be looking into the result of their qualitative research on the learner’s extent of retention.
He said this will serve as a basis for identifying interventions that would assist students while on home learning.
There are a lot of interventions for the face-to-face learning but there were none to help the children in the absence of teachers, Gomez lamented.
On the other hand, Guimaras schools division superintendent Roselyn Palcat said their comprehensive rapid literacy assessment using the regional unified numeracy test for the school year 2021-2022 showed “evident” learning losses.
She said 34 percent of the kindergarteners have poor alphabet knowledge skills, 32 percent of Grades 1-3 have poor word recognition skills and 20 percent of Grades 4-6 have poor comprehension skills.
At the end of school year 2021-2022, DepEd data showed that 1,351 schools in the region were able to implement their face-to-face classes.
Of the 5,055 schools all over the region, 2,451 public and 201 private schools have been nominated or have passed the school safety assessment tool but were unable to open their face-to-face classes since the school year has already ended. (PNA/PN)
