A multi-stakeholder movement composed of education experts, teachers, parents, and students called on the government to reopen more schools in an effort to address the challenges in learning outcomes.
“The critical situation should prompt government and education authorities to do much more to expand and hasten safe school reopening in the country,” said the Movement for Safe, Equitable Quality and Relevant (SEQuRe) Education Movement.
The broad network of education stakeholders made this appeal after the World Bank March 2021 study findings showed that “9 out of 10 aged 10 Filipino children are unable to read and understand a simple text.”
With less than less than 120 public and private basic education schools nationwide allowed to participate in the pilot run of face-to-face classes, SEQuRe warned that more students will suffer from learning loss.
“With the very late decision for the pilot run, and at the slow rate the authorities are going in checking and meeting the requirements for safe school reopening, it is apparent that we still have an excruciatingly long way to go before we can see the majority of our schools safely reopened to learners,” SEQuRe said.
Need for face-to-face learning
SEQuRe explained that literacy is a “major key to understanding” other learning areas.
The group noted that while the Philippines has “already performed poorly on reading pre-pandemic” this was further sacrificed under remote learning.
Under this set-up, teacher-learner interaction was decimated --- especially for the majority who had no access to online learning needs and were enrolled under modular learning.
“Our capacities and experiences show that reading can only be effectively learned through in-person instruction,” the group added.
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