DepEd eyes break for Cordillera teachers before in-person classes resume

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BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines —Teachers in the Cordillera region can look forward to a month-long vacation before schools conduct full in-person classes, an official of the Department of Education (DepEd) said on Tuesday.

Following the complicated school terms for the past two years due to restrictions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, “teachers need to totally rest, even if it’s just for a month,” said Estela Cariño, DepEd Cordillera director.

“[Teachers] will not have work in mind for a month, and no one will text them to submit reports,” Cariño said at a press conference in Bauko town, Mountain Province.

Like in the rest of the country, schools in the Cordillera were shut down in 2020 and 2021, prompting grade school and high school students to complete workbooks prepared by their teachers at home while their lessons were transmitted online or through television and radio broadcasts.

Checking stress

Last year, 430,924 Kindergarten to Grade 12 students were enrolled in the region.

A break for teachers, as well as pupils, would help them transition back to conventional classes, Cariño said.

“Some teachers got used to working from home to do modules. Some learners are used to staying at home and letting parents answer their modules while they play. This is reality and these are issues we have to address,” she said.

Cariño added: “I came across a learner who expressed a dislike for resuming classroom lessons, complaining that the teacher requires the child to learn how to read when no such pressure exists at home.”

The region’s schools must track down cases of behavioral and mental stress before schools open, she said. “This is a phenomenon we don’t see, and we may dismiss these cases as a minority. But for the region, that may be a bigger number than we thought,” Cariño said.

—VINCENT CABREZA

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