MANILA, Philippines — Only about half of the school division offices are halfway through the production of required self-learning modules for the blended learning program to be implemented in the coming school year which will open in less than two weeks amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, an official of the Department of Education (DepEd) said Friday.
SELF-LEARNING MODULES – A schoolteacher at Geronimo Santiago Elementary School in Manila sorts out self-learning modules for students who will study at home under the blended and online instruction format due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
“According to the reports, about half of the schools’ division offices are more than half of the, they have done more than half of the required self-learning modules to be printed and another half are not yet halfway,” Education Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.
San Antonio explained that DepEd has “recalibrated” its strategies for the first week of classes and plans to “use TV and radio and will use the first week as orientation week.”
“Although lots of training and orientation and webinars have been undertaken by schools regional offices and division offices, we hope to use TV and radio to emphasize things that need to be attended to by everybody, our fellow principals, teachers, parents and everybody else,” he said.
“We hope to have episodes that will make sure that the psychosocial first lessons are fully understood and other things that are related to the smooth implementation of the distance learning delivery modality the schools have chosen to implement in their own areas.”
According to San Antonio, about half or slightly more than half of the students in the country prefer to have access to printed self-learning modules for the resumption of classes.
Without the self-learning modules, he said the teachers will have to provide activity sheets to students.
“I feel that without the self-learning modules, that’s fine, but the teachers will have to provide activity sheets to guide the kids as they try to deepen their understanding of the competencies being covered for that particular lesson,” said the official.
San Antonio added that DepEd officials are consistently meeting with regional directors to assess the readiness of schools for the resumption of classes.
He added that in their last meeting, the regional directors said that the preparations are “just proper and on time.”
“We are on time but we understand there are calls to reconsider the August 24 opening. We are having another meeting this afternoon and I think this is the main item to be discussed — the issue about readiness again,” he said.
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