‘Scarring’ of COVID-19

It’s back to classrooms at all public elementary and high schools starting Aug. 29. As early as last week, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced this. But the DepEd is leaving to discretion of private schools when to open classes on any date starting “the first Monday of June but not later than the last day of August.”

As of last school year, DepEd placed at 28.7 million the total student enrollees. Of this, around 24 million students were enrolled in all public schools nationwide from kinder, elementary and secondary.

Meanwhile, groups of teachers and student organizations as well as parents’ associations have renewed their appeals to revert to the old school calendar. Reason: the extreme heat last March and April tolled heavily inside the classrooms.

Previously, the DepEd designated April-May as “summer” vacation coinciding with the hot weather, or dry season in the Philippines. All classes before all opened in June even as the rainy, or wet season in the country prevails. Wet season normally ends before December.

However, the global climate change altered the weather patterns of the entire world, including ours. In fact, while our country is supposed to be having the long dry spell due to the El Niño phenomenon, we just had super typhoon “Egay.” Coupled by monsoon, it unleashed so much rains and immediately followed by another typhoon “Falcon.”

The August school opening first gained grounds in the past largely because of the frequent suspension of classes due to typhoons, flooding and other natural and man-made calamities. Actually, it was a direct offshoot of the COVID-19 pandemic when the pandemic reached our shores in February 2020.

The old law is Republic Act (RA) 7797 – approved in 1994 – set the start of the school year “on the first Monday of June but not later than the last day of August.” This was amended in July 2020 by RA 11480 signed into law by former President Rodrigo Duterte. It amended Section 3 of RA 7797, with an additional clause: “Provided, That in the event of a declaration of a state of emergency or state of calamity, the President, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Education, may set different date for the start of the school year in the country or parts thereof.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the longest disruption of school classes.

This and other reasons prompted the 18th Congress to revive the joint Congressional Commission on Education. In a bid to update and address the latest developments – or lack of it – in the country’s basic education, RA No. 11899, or the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM-2) Act was passed into law on May 22 last year.

However, ex-President Duterte did not sign it but let it lapsed into law on July 23 of the same year. Little did the former President expect then that it would be his daughter, now Vice President Sara Duterte, who will seat as concurrent DepEd Secretary. The ten-man EDCOM-2 is co-chaired by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian leading the Senate panel.

As the chairman of the Senate committee on basic education, Gatchalian expressed deepest concerns of the long-term effects to the young minds of Filipino learners of the COVID-19 pandemic. As DepEd Secretary, Gatchalian noted, VP Sara “encountered a lot of scarring from COVID-19 and one of which is learning loss.”

Speaking in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday, Gatchalian pointed to the resulting so-called “learning poverty” in the Philippines that got worst due to the pandemic. “Learning poverty” is defined as inability to read and understand age-appropriate texts by age 10.

Based from World Bank estimates, Gatchalian noted the “learning poverty” in the Philippines is “quite alarming” at 90.9 percent as of June 2022. This means 9 out of 10 children among our 10-year-olds cannot understand what they are reading, he rued.

This, despite the fact that DepEd came up with alternative mode dubbed as “blended learning” at all grades in our present K-12 curriculum. Instead of going to schools, at-home classes were done either module-based or online learning.

Obviously, the closure of schools in 2020 and 2021 made it badder. Originally not in any better shape before, Gatchalian attributed the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions further degraded “the cognitive abilities of learners on reading and mathematics” of Filipino learners.

It was only last July 22 when President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) issued Proclamation 29 that lifted the state of public health emergency throughout the Philippines – effectively revoking various orders, memoranda, among other pandemic restrictions.

Long before the lifting of the state of public health emergency, the DepEd gradually implemented the return of onsite learning with a dry-run in selected schools on limited basis starting in November 2021. It turned out quite well, without any resurgence of COVID-19 infection among students and teachers. This paved the way for the full in-person classes at all schools beginning August last year up to present. It was to the credit of VP Sara, Gatchalian cited, it’s “back to normal” studies at all levels in schools in both public and private from then on.

Gatchalian welcomed the adjustments made by DepEd to switch to “blended learning” as a mode that can be adopted to avoid suspension of classes in times of natural calamities and man-made disasters. He bared drafting a bill that would  institutionalize alternative modes of delivery of education to help learners switch from traditional form to alternative method.

As the co-chairperson of EDCOM II, Gatchalian cited, they will continue the review and come up with innovative ways to boost DepEd’s efforts to effectively address existing difficulties and new challenges. Gatchalian sponsored the passage of EDCOM II which officially started in January this year its review and nationwide consultations with all stakeholders.

With thousands of lives lost to COVID-19 in our country, we cannot claim being unscathed. Sadly, the “scarring” of COVID-19 remains deep and very palpable among Filipino learners.