How do you practice “learning by doing” under distance learning when face-to-face sessions are not yet allowed?
For the Department of Education (DepEd), one of the biggest challenges it faces right now is the implementation of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) strand under the Senior High School (SHS) Program.
The SHS Program or the Grades 11 and 12 was rolled out in 2018 as part of the K to 12 program. One of its promises was employment - especially for the tech-voc graduates since they were expected to acquire the right set of skills and competencies that would help them enable land suitable jobs.
However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the country poses challenges in the implementation of TVET this school year.
“In relation to how DepEd is implementing our TVET, there are many challenges that are being faced, no doubt, by DepEd especially the way we are now implementing technical-vocational educational through distance learning modality,” said DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali during the launch of “First Future 2.0” program of the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) on Feb. 2.
Due to the health situation in the country, Umalis said that DepEd’s Curriculum and Instruction strand has issued several memoranda giving several guidelines to schools on how to proceed, for example, with their SHS TV strand offering - among others.
TVET, Umali said, is “based largely on practical activities” or the so-called “learning by doing.” Given the current limitations, he admitted that “home-based learning is not a perfect substitute for what our tech-voc students should be doing.”
Umali said that among the challenges on part of DepEd is identifying alternative activities for the tec-voc students. These activities, he added, are those that “we could still do at home or at community to make sure that the competencies and the required skills that we want our tech-voc students to be equipped with will be there.”
Umali said that DepEd has a Joint Delivery Program (JDP) wherein subsidies are given to students that would allow them to go to private Technical Vocational Education Institutions (TVEIs) to do the “practical portion” of their curriculum. Before the pandemic, 92,033 SHS students have benefited from the program.
With the practical aspect part - where students will go to their laboratories and classrooms with all the equipment and the gadgets - now gone, Umali said that there is a "challenge on how to implement the TVET meaningfully."