MANILA, Philippines — Six-year-old Teejay Bendalian misses school, or how it used to be before the COVID-19 pandemic like when he and his kindergarten classmates played tag during break time.
He’s now enrolled as a first grader at Pinagbuhatan Elementary School in Pasig City, and as with the millions of other pupils across the country and around the world, he has been spending the last eight months at home, attending online classes through his tablet.
“I like math and social studies, and mother tongue the best,” Bendalian said as he wrote his age on paper in both letter and numerical forms—“six” and “6.”
The past months have not deterred his learning, at least. That’s because he is actually still attending in-person classes. These sessions, however, have been limited in attendance and schedule, compared with prepandemic schooling.
Weekly classes
Bendalian is one of about 80 students attending weekly remedial classes at a community learning hub in Eusebio Bliss Village 2, a residential compound in Pasig City.
It’s one of 13 initial “hubs” or miniclassrooms launched on Oct. 19 by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and jointly managed by their host city governments and supported as well by the OVP’s private partners.
The project is also undertaken in close coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd). The hub’s current operations head, Michelle Roman, is part of the DepEd’s city division office in Pasig, said Mario Galvez, the hub lead supervisor in this city and consultant to the city mayor, Vico Sotto.
The hubs are the only places in the country with physical, in-person classes under the coronavirus pandemic. They serve as alternative learning spaces for students from Grades 1 to 6 who are having trouble coping with the demands of modular/distance learning.
Volunteer tutors assist them through their modules as if in an actual classroom, and remedial sessions make sure they’re catching up with their lessons.
Each classroom is fully equipped with desks with plastic barriers, gadgets and supplies, while its setup is designed to be as close as possible to formal schooling.
Most of the hubs’ logistics have been funded or sourced by the OVP through its private partners, such as JCI Manila.
‘Risks of exposure’
The hubs are set up in currently empty public schools or housing projects, such as the Pasig site, explained Merlita dela Peña, who is the homeowners’ association chair of Eusebio Bliss Village 2 and the head tutor there.
Youths who wish to attend classes must both be enrolled and should come from the same neighborhoods to minimize security and transmission risks. Their parents only need to coordinate with the hubs’ managing team to get their children into the program.
Vice President Leni Robredo has been calling for such limited in-person classes in areas with low community transmissions. President Duterte, however, is against the traditional in-person teaching or learning unless the risks of exposure to the sickness are eliminated.
“Until the COVID-19 vaccine is available … I cannot allow and will not put to risk the health and lives of our students and teachers,” Mr. Duterte said in his State of the Nation Address in July.
Thankfully for Pinagbuhatan Village, it only had 32 active cases as of Nov. 18. The compound itself has been COVID-19 free since March, Dela Peña said.
The other community learning hubs set up by the OVP are in Caloocan City in Metro Manila, Taytay town in Rizal province, Himamaylan City in Negros Occidental province; San Jose town in Camarines Sur province, Balete town in Aklan province, Lucena City in Quezon province, and Tabaco City in Albay.
The Pasig site is the “pilot hub,” Galvez said. “What we do here will be the template for the other hubs. So we’re really doing our best.”
To maintain physical distancing, only six students — arranged per grade level — are allowed in 90-minute shifts from 1 to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday.
When the Inquirer visited the hub last week, six Grade 1 students, including Bendalian, were waiting for class on the ground floor. There, the tutors took their temperature and made them sanitize their hands before going up to the classroom.
Volunteers
Currently, 23 volunteer tutors are assigned to the hub, and working for free, for now. Most are fresh graduates like 22-year-old Abigail Hona, but some are seasoned teachers like 56-year-old Nancy Digol.
The hubs’ electricity, water and other costs are shouldered by the Pasig government.
Before classes started, the kids told Hona they wanted to study the order of numbers. So for two hours, Hona gave them exercises to answer.
“They’re always this enthusiastic,” she said. “They like the classroom setup.”
“I’m happy,” Bendalian wrote. Later, he said it was because he “liked learning with others.”