House Deputy Speaker Bro. Eddie Villanueva and Representative Domingo Rivera of CIBAC Party-List were disappointed in the “Sagot for Sale modus”, where parents are said to pay for someone else to answer their children’s self-learning modules.
The Department of Education (DepEd) earlier confirmed the said scheme and an investigation is in progress to validate the reports. Due to the pandemic, the government has enforced distance learning for the school year as children remained locked down in their homes to contain the COVID-19. Part of this modality is the use of printed modules.
“It’s cheating. Tolerating the said scheme will not be beneficial to students in the long run,” House Deputy Speaker Villanueva exclaimed.
“With this kind of practice, we are just compromising the learning and development of students who would bear the burden of its aftereffects,” he added.
The Party-list acknowledges the online learning set-up compounded the existing difficulties for families in community quarantine. However, the solons clarified that this should not be a reason for parents to take on as their children will be left as victims.
“Nakiki-usap kami sa mga magulang, huwag nating gawin ito para sa ating mga anak. The fee you’ll be allotting for this scheme may be used to many other necessities as we all struggle to survive during this pandemic,” Rep. Rivera said.
CIBAC Party-List calls the attention of the Education Department on the assessment of student’s learning. According to DepEd, 99.13% of more than 14 million public school learners passed the first quarter of the school year. This data does not include yet the National Capital Region, Region 7 and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
“We are not underestimating the capability of students, but we want to have a better understanding on how learners are being evaluated as they attend their classes under a distance learning set-up. With this, we can get away from tolerating this gibberish practice (‘Sagot for Sale’ scheme),” Rep. Villanueva, House Deputy Speaker for Good Governance and Moral Uprightness concluded.