Making learning work in the new normal

K-12 learning in public schools is due to start within the next few weeks even as enrollment numbers have significantly dropped from a year ago. At this time when the pandemic poses uncertain risks in education even among younger children, the consensus in the Philippines has been for blended and long-distance learning, and only those in low-risk areas are allowed to adopt classroom learning.

How new learning modes will fare in the coming months depends largely on teachers and parents who will have to exert additional effort to keep pupils focused on their studies outside the disciplined confines of traditional classrooms.

The Department of Education is now in the midst of retooling public school teachers in this new normal modular-based learning. Public school teachers, as expected, are bewildered by the crash course. Bottom line, though, they have no choice but to cope and do their best.

Schooling in the current year for more than 27 million primary and secondary Filipino students has already been delayed by several months, and even compounded by the two weeks foregone during the last school year when quarantines were imposed.

Less ideal circumstances

While teaching children at home is not an economic issue in the Philippines unlike in the United States, where parents rely on schools to mind their youngsters while they work, idle and unproductive time outside a learning environment represents lost opportunity that will impinge on future productivity.

When the learning momentum is lost, the temptation to drop out from school becomes very enticing. Statistics have shown that high school students who have not completed graduation requirements will find it difficult to find permanent jobs, and will often get stuck in being casual or temporary workers earning minimum wages for the rest of their lives.

For this reason, getting children back to learning mode is imperative, even if it is not going to be under the ideal circumstance during the pre-pandemic educational era.

We can only hope that teachers will be able to learn quickly and adapt to the new normal demands of imparting knowledge so that elementary and high school graduates of 2021 will not significantly lag behind their peers from other countries.

Parents’ role

It will be parents, this time, with a lot of help and support from teachers and learning materials – either printed or in digital form – who will have to pitch in to ensure that their kids are not left behind.

For parents who believe and are keen for their children to excel, this should not be too big of a problem. It is the adults in families who have not supervised their growing children in their studies who will need more help.

Likewise, more affluent families will find it easier to adapt because they can afford the modalities that allow for digital learning, something that the bigger universities and colleges of the country that charge tens of thousands of pesos for tuition fees are now successfully peddling.

It is families who cannot afford to own even a smartphone or a television that will be handicapped in the blended learning system era. Supervising the home learning of their young by radio will be a challenge, even with written guides left by teachers.

Still, everyone must put in the best effort, and having children learn less in these challenged times is better than them not learning anything at all. We can even hope that with parents who will be able to see up close and evaluate what their children are learning.

Edutech start-ups

Related during this pandemic is the emergence of technology start-ups that have become more relevant in answering the need to improve the country’s educational system or bridge aspirational gaps of students and schools.

Most education technology (or edutech) start-ups in the Philippines are focused on the tertiary levels where the privately run colleges and universities dominate and charge high tuition fees.

Enrollment at the tertiary levels, thus, is low compared to other countries in the region, especially because drop out rates in high school continue to be high due to other financial costs like transportation, school supplies, and other related expenses – even if tuition is free.

Many successful edutech start-ups in the Philippines are those that offer easy loans for college students through their parents, although this landscape may change once the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Law that allows government subsidies for students, even in private schools, is fully implemented.

Aside from facilitating school loans, other edutech companies lack support that can allow them to become meaningful contributors in education. EduSuites, for example, grapples with the challenge of signing up colleges and universities in its program of moving enrollment and class scheduling digitally. Eskwelabs, which offers online courses in data science at very reasonable rates, bemoans its low enrollment.

Still, the Philippines presents a sea of opportunities for edutech companies, not just because of the increasing number of Filipino students, but also because of the relatively stable economic fundamentals that should give the country the leverage to grow once again as soon as this pandemic is over.

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