A federation of teachers questioned the accuracy of the data reported by the Department of Education (DepEd) saying that over 99 percent of students enrolled this school year received passing grades in the previous quarter.
“Many teachers were compelled to give an ‘incomplete’ grade as many of their students are not able to keep up with the lessons and complete their requirements,” said Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Raymond Basilio. This, he added, is based on the ground monitoring conducted by the group.
ACT added that teachers also face the dilemma of how to “justifiably grade” their students - knowing that the learning conditions might be unfavorable and the government support is lacking for them to learn.
Due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation in the country, DepEd is implementing a distance learning approach where lessons are delivered to the students through modular (printed and offline); online; television and radio-based instruction; and blended learning which is a mix of two or more learning delivery modalities.
Basilio pointed out several loopholes in the current learning set-up. For instance, he noted that there is “little to no input and live contact that teachers” can provide in modular modality.
Meanwhile, he added that poor children - who have no adult guidance and internet access to help in their learning - are also at a disadvantage.
“It would be very unfair for learners to be mechanically flunked and their promotion be gravely affected mainly because this government failed to address the pandemic and provide an effective blended learning program,” Basilio said.
Given these challenges, Basilio urged the government to swiftly provide solutions to the worsening learning crisis and “salvage the rest of the school year.” This, he explained, can be done if the government exerts all efforts to enable the gradual transition to safe in-person classes while providing for all the needs of distance learning, and simplifying the curriculum to concentrate on core competencies that can be realistically learned under the current situation.
“It is in the face-to-face set-up that teachers can really assess their students and provide ample solutions to improve and enrich their students’ competencies,” Basilio said.
Once schools have reopened, Basilio said that DepEd can conduct a comprehensive diagnostic test to identify the learning gaps and draw a program on how to address this. “If the government really cares for our learners, they need to stop reducing their woes to manipulated numbers and find concrete solutions on how to save education from the crisis,” he added.
On March 3, DepEd reported in a public hearing of the Senate Committee on Basic Education that “99% of students got passing marks” under the distance learning in the 1st Quarter of S. 2020-2021.
However, ACT questioned DepEd’s data and pointed out that of the 25 million enrolled students this SY, the report “only cited 14.5 million students who passed and 126,674 who got failing marks.” This, the group said, leaves at least 10 million learners “unaccounted” for.
While DepEd maintained that the reports came from its local offices, ACT said that the said student passing data does not reflect the real learning situation at this time.