A teachers' group on Sunday, Sept. 12, said "grim" prospects await students and education workers at the beginning of the school year 2021-2022 as public schools remain closed and distance learning woes are still unresolved.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) attributed the "sorry state of education" to the incompetent leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte and Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Briones which resulted in "grave learning loss and worsening education crisis."
“Teachers, students, and parents alike are reasonably anxious to start the new school year. They are set to be subjected to the same torment they went through in the last year as President Duterte continues to neglect his duty to the education sector while Secretary Briones desperately tries to deodorize the reeking state of education, instead of working with stakeholders in demanding better state support," ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio lamented.
"It's just us again. It's impossible, our teachers and students can no longer take the incompetency of our government," Basilio added.
ACT said the most obvious indicator of the government’s failure to support and improve education amid the pandemic is the persisting blanket imposition of the no face-to-face classes policy in basic education, making the Philippines one of the last two countries in the world to have an indefinite school closure.
Since late last year, many stakeholders have pushed for the pilot run of limited in-classroom learning in remote and low-risk or zero-case areas. However, such proposals have, in the last months, included fewer and fewer schools due to the worsening public health crisis, especially with the Delta variant-induced surge in COVID-19 cases.
The group also hit the government for the lack of resolution to the multitude of problems with its remote learning program.
"Every other country—except for one—has successfully re-opened their schools despite the pandemic, but the Duterte admin stubbornly insists on its thoughtless ‘one-size fits all’ policy. It’s employing the same unscientific approach it has used against COVID-19 in its response to the needs of education—which not even Secretary Briones can deny. Neither can DepEd refute the glaring costs of such failure to education access and quality and to the welfare of teachers and students. So how can the Secretary, in good conscience, stomach the praises she publicly gave out to President Duterte yesterday?" Basilio said.
He referred to Briones’ earlier claims that the agency has been able to "improve the overall condition of the country’s education system" through the “increased allocation and strong commitment” of the Duterte administration.
Briones cited the raising of teachers' salaries, construction of more schools, and bigger education funding.
However, ACT said Briones' claims are a "deliberate effort to mislead the public" and a "complete misrepresentation of the sentiments of the education sector."
ACT added that "everyone but Briones" acknowledges the grave crisis education is under."
“Has she forgotten how Duterte’s Salary Standardization Law gave the second-lowest salary adjustment to teachers, or she just chooses to ignore that because she has consistently opposed our fight for decent pay? What about the widely noted learning loss among students, or the amount of school closures during this regime—from hundreds of Lumad schools to private schools that the government failed to support at the height of the pandemic?"
The school year 2021-2022 will officially open in public schools on Monday, Sept. 13 under a blended learning set-up.
As of Sept. 10, there are 21.9 million enrollees in public and private schools in the country.