PARTIAL results of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) survey showed that 8.8 million parent-respondents chose the modular learning system for the coming school year.
Parents opting for this system despite questions on its effectivity due to limited teacher-student interaction is indicative of the lack of meaningful and viable choices in the agency’s Learning Continuity Plan (LCP).
While it has its own challenges, the online synchronous learning mode has the most potential to warrant true learning among students with the present circumstances, as it allows regular interaction and feedbacking with teachers. But what has the government done to enhance connectivity and establish the needed infrastructure to implement an effective distance learning program? Parents have no choice but to rely on the most basic modality and also the most arduous for them.
The recent survey results also attest to the inaccessibility of online mode of learning for ordinary Filipino families, thereby debunking claim of its viability merely on the basis that the number of cellphones in the country surpasses the population.
DepEd appears completely out-of-touch with the realities of Filipinos. The education agency and the rest of the administration need to admit the truth: the Philippines remains to be a backward country and massive poverty prevails. Therefore, without promptly and sufficiently funding the infrastruc ture, equipment, and other operational needs of the various remote modalities, the delivery of accessible and quality education through LCP will remain an illusion.
As per the parents’ preference for modular learning, the said modality includes the distribution of printed or digital materials to learners, who will then study the materials on their own with guidance from parent/s or guardian/s. Teachers will periodically gather the completed activity sheets upon the release of the next batch of modules. Considering the multiple burden parents carry as the pandemic worsen and the reality of many’s minimal educational background, it’s highly probable that not every child in the household will be given due support regardless of the parent’s dedication to provide them proper education.
In the first place, parents don’t have the training teachers do; leading to the next difficulty — teachers will bear the brunt of ensuring quality education through a modality incapable of delivering such. This has been the way of things in education — the state’s duties are passed onto teachers without sufficient input or enabling mechanisms. Just consider the eight years of lacking learning resources for the K to 12 curriculum which compelled teachers to find their own materials.
Teachers, time and again, have gone beyond their job descriptions just so every child gets a chance at quality education. Teachers will continue go to great lengths and brave any danger for their students, but the youth’s right to accessible quality education should not come at the cost of their and their teachers’ health and safety.
