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Ample funding, more comprehensive plan for safe school reopening needed as PH resumes face-to-face learning --- survey
Ample funding, more comprehensive plan for safe school reopening needed as PH resumes face-to-face learning --- survey
A multi-stakeholder movement underscored the great need for ample government funding and a “more evidence-based and comprehensive plan” to expand safe school reopening as the country reopens its schools for limited face-to-face classes amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Movement for Safe, Equitable, Quality, and Relevant (SEQuRe) Education, composed of education experts, teachers, parents, and students, released on Thursday, April 21, the results of the survey it conducted on the initial assessment of the implementation of limited face-to-face classes.
SEQuRe Education sought public school teachers who were involved in in-classroom learning and who were willing to be correspondents to the movement’s “Bantay Balik-Paaralan” (BBP) Project and answer the BBP monitoring tool.
The survey covered 63 out of the 13,692 basic education schools nationwide that have opened for in-classroom learning during different periods from November 15, 2021, until April 4, 2022.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2022/04/04/deped-3-1-million-learners-attend-face-to-face-classes-in-over-13k-schools/
The survey --- which ran from March 1 to 31 --- indicated the “correctness of the push to reopen schools” as 94 to 96 percent of respondents indicated that “students were happy to be back in schools.”
The results of the same survey also showed that 86 to 96 said that students were “learning better compared to when they were enrolled in purely distance learning modalities.”
However, SEQuRe Education noted that based on the national data and the survey results, it showed that the “government still has a long way to go to bring the majority of our students back in school.”
Based on the survey findings, SEQuRe Education said that government funding and support were “insufficient” which compelled 59 to 83 percent of teacher-respondents to “spend out-of-pocket to prepare schools and classrooms for safe reopening, while some important safety measures were still not sufficiently installed.”
SEQuRe Education also noted that families of learners also had difficulties in providing for their children’s distance learning needs amid the persisting economic crisis as observed by 64 to 89 percent of the respondents.
Furthermore, the survey also found that efforts and strategies for the implementation of limited in-classroom learning were “heavily decentralized and school-dependent.”
This, the group said, “put into play the initiative and resourcefulness of teachers and school heads who find ways to operate their schools and teach under blended learning modalities” despite “lacking guidance” from the higher offices of the Department of Education (DepEd).
SEQuRe Education also pointed out that there was an “apparent lack of a systematic assessment” to gauge and understand the extent and nature of the learning loss that was brought about by one and a half to two years of school closure --- as well as an overall guide on how to tackle the current education crisis.
“As such, while the country succeeded in resuming in-classroom instruction for about one-tenth of learners, there is a great need for ample government funding and a more evidence-based and comprehensive plan to expand safe school reopening and ensure that education effectively recovers from the crisis,” SEQuRe Education said.
RELATED STORY:
https://mb.com.ph/2021/10/07/face-to-face-classes-can-mitigate-challenges-of-distance-learning-deped-says/