In Preparation For The New School Year Amidst The Pandemic

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OPINIONS, LIFESTYLE | July 1, 2020

The continuing threat of the COVID-19 global pandemic has pushed the Philippines to make use of blended learning and utilize it for the new school year beginning August. (Image Source: Asian Development Bank)

The implementation of the enhanced community quarantine over Metro Manila and Luzon last March due to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has literally put a halt on the remaining days of academic year 2019-2020 with classes on all levels indefinitely suspended and eventually making use of new technologies for their resumption. Unfortunately, most Filipino students are struggling to get used to these new technologies in the safe comforts of their homes while there are those who don't have enough resources to finish their classes and move to a higher level of education. Luckily though, several schools have exerted their own efforts to ensure the safe and resolving finish of the previous school year as seen on television and social media. But will they exert more to prepare themselves for the new school year amidst the increasing number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines and around the world?

Various degrees of quarantines imposed over different parts of the country, where students 20 years old and below are not allowed to go outside and encouraged to stay inside their homes, prohibited the staging of face-to-face learning in classrooms except for areas under the most relaxed level of quarantine where confirmed cases of coronavirus are either zero or low but literally at limited capacity. Such concept is most likely to be utilized when the new school year in the Philippines starts on August 24 as approved by the national government's Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) where more than ten million students are preparing for the new normal brewing in their schools after their enrollment. Apart from the prohibition of face-to-face learning in medium and high-risk areas under quarantine, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced that educational and learning institutions are mandated to make use of blended learning for the new academic year.

Through blended learning, students will make use of modern educational resources that would likely help them in their studies. These include educational programs on television and radio and online educational materials for both students and teachers. Lipa City, under Mayor Eric B. Africa, is among one of the many cities in the Philippines that are making preparations for the new approach with the threat of the coronavirus still brewing. For instance, incoming students of Kolehiyo Ng Lungsod Ng Lipa (KLL) will be given tablet computers to be used throughout the new school year. On the other hand, there are places in the digital space where online educational materials and learning resources for students and teachers can be availed for free to complement for the blended learning approach such as DepEd Commons and CHED PHL Connect among others.

Although preparations are on full hand prior to the beginning of the new academic year, the impending use of blended learning has received criticisms from teachers, parents and student organizations alike. Based on their stand, teachers are clamoring for a so-called internet allowance that can help them complete preparations for the new approach while there are assumptions that the national government's budget for education is not enough to cover such preparations. Regardless of the criticism, it is interesting to find out how will incoming students embrace the use of new technologies and a different kind of learning approach upon the start of the new school year while staying safe from the dangers of COVID-19. Only time will tell when the pandemic subsides, but it is best that students will have to go through to their new normal for now until maybe a vaccine developed as a cure to coronavirus is commercially available or perhaps it will dissipate before the development is finished. Anyway, I wish DepEd the best of luck in the new school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.