Resume in-person classes in areas with low COVID cases, gov’t urged

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MANILA, Philippines — The government should allow face-to-face classes in areas with few COVID-19 cases and only for children whose parents agree to send their kids to school.

This was suggested by the World Bank (WB) as it noted that the lack of equipment such as computers and slow internet impacted negatively on education last year. The government has prohibited in-person classes since last year as part of measures to contain the pandemic.

The Washington-based multilateral lender warned that learning poverty—which counts those age 10 or below who could neither read nor understand a simple story—likely rose higher than 69.5 percent in 2019, or before the pandemic struck.

Many challenges

This year, it added that an additional 1.6 million schoolchildren were unable to attend classes as basic education enrollment declined by 6 percent from last year. Even those who were able to enroll had to face many challenges under the current distance learning modality, especially those belonging to poor households who lacked internet connectivity and gadgets, it said.

In its report titled “Philippine Basic Education System: Strengthening Effective Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond” published on Friday, the bank noted that two surveys conducted among Filipino households late last year showed a high demand for returning to in-person classes especially among lower-income households, students and women who had to stay home and assist their children.

Some countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have had fewer COVID-19 cases and their school closures were brief. Others that were still coping with the pandemic gradually and intermittently resumed in-person classes, with careful safety measures in place to minimize the impact of prolonged school closures and distance learning on children, the bank said.

As for the Philippines, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic as it tallied the second-biggest number of confirmed cases in the region, the government has yet to lift the restriction on face-to-face classes.

The Department of Education (DepEd) and the National Economic and Development Authority had pushed to pilot in-person classes in areas with low COVID cases at the start of the year, but President Duterte decided to stop its implementation due to the emergence of new and more contagious virus variants.

Learning modules

While the DepEd has implemented distance learning through online channels, broadcast media, and paper-based, self-learning modules, the World Bank lamented its limited effectiveness.

“Enrollment does not necessarily guarantee effective learning and there are significant challenges in distance learning,” it said, citing last year’s survey results showing that limited access to gadgets and internet, and the child’s inability to focus and stress due to COVID were among the major barriers to effective learning.

Low awareness

Despite the availability of various modalities, the World Bank also noted that four in five households with enrolled children used the mainly paper-based module for distance learning. While this could be as effective as other modalities if properly used, the bank said students found using paper modules more difficult than the others in the absence of close supervision by teachers or support from household members.

It did not help that there was low awareness of the DepEd’s TV and radio programs, hence a similarly marginal usage or audience for them.

School closures and long-term learning loss were also likely to affect the children’s economic potential and productivity in adulthood, thus undermining the country’s competitiveness, the World Bank warned.

The World Bank recommended that the delivery of distance learning be improved—by strengthening communication between teachers and students, engaging parents and guardians actively in education, improving the quality of paper modules, providing materials for early graders in local languages, and enhancing awareness of the complementary learning platforms.