AKIN TO a heavily pregnant mother we have been burdened by the coronavirus pandemic for the past nine months. At the peak of this health crisis all stakeholders in the academe were in a quandary how to conduct classes for educators and learners. In the local level, we were looking for leaders to confront the unseen enemy and in Angeles City in particular, Mayor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr., Chief Tactician and Adviser IC Calaguas and Executive Assistant IV Reina Manuel were and will always be leading —- during COVID19 and beyond.
Unfortunately in some areas, education in the midst of this pandemic is ‘only for those who can afford’. Most of the students and parents cited as reasons for not going to school their lack of access to the internet and technology at home. Some parents are now prioritizing looking for jobs so they could pay bills which have piled up during lockdown and education is not their top priority now. While online learning is only one option for the blended approach, data shows that not all households in the Philippines have access to the internet. Citing data from the National Telecommunications Commission, DepEd said that as of December 2019, only 67% of the Philippine population have access to the internet.
Whereas, Lazatin Jr., Calaguas and Manuel whose battlecry “No one is left behind when it comes to education”, is tantamount to providing this basic right at any cost to students struggling in the face of this trying time. Their harmonious commitment to ensure quality and unhampered online learning is a vital chance and alternative pathway for students in public schools to complete their basic education and well-being in the thick of the quarantine measures.
Almost 60,000 android tablets were dispatched to students enrolled in grades 4 to 12 levels and 2,997 teachers to all 40 elementary and 13 high schools. Free internet connections with 772 access points around the city were set in place. All these were expedited in anticipation of abnormal weather conditions such as super typhoons Rolly and Ulysses. The city government figured a whopping Php 194 million to fund these 16GB/2GB RAM tablets and internet fees.
The enactment of Republic Act No. 10533 otherwise known as the “Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013” or the K to 12 Law, emphasized the State’s commitment to have a functional basic education in the country that will develop productive and responsible citizens equipped with the essential competencies, skills and values for both life-long learning and employment. However despite the reforms in basic education to improve the functional literacy rate, Filipino learners have fared dismally in several assessments and surveys conducted whether internally – National Achievement Test, third party evaluation of teacher quality, and employer feedback on their hiring difficulties, or those by international organizations including the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the recently released 2019 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – supported Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM).
In December 2019, the UNICEF reported that although more than 90% of primary school age children are enrolled in school in Southeast Asia, about one in three, or 70 million children in East and Southeast Asia, fail to achieve minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics and leave school without the foundational skills needed for higher learning and participation in 21st century economies. The SEA-PLM Report revealed that majority of Filipino Grade 5 students had a reading proficiency level comparative to those in the first years of primary school, with 27% still at the level where they can only match single words to an image of a familiar object or concept and 29% are at the level where they can only read simple narratives and personal opinions and begin to engage with its meanings. The report also showed that in terms of writing, only 1% of Grade 5 learners in the Philippines achieved “higher levels” of proficiency – or the ability to write cohesive texts with detailed ideas and a good range of appropriate vocabulary – while almost half or 45% of Grade 5 learners in the Philippines were assessed to have limited ability to present ideas in writing. For mathematical literacy, the SEA-PLM Report indicated that a modest percentage of Grade 5 learners have achieved the mathematical literacy skills expected at the end of primary school, while the majority are still working towards mastering fundamental mathematical skills. The SEA-PLM Report also showed that the percentage of Grade 5 Filipino students who achieved minimum proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics was significantly lower than Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, but performed slightly better than those in Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar.
Among the policy recommendations in the SEA-PLM study are: (a) the prioritization of early learning (b) ensuring on-time enrollment for ail students and (c) implementation of progressive learning standards in the basic education curriculum.