Children will suffer from school delays

Politicians who want to postpone school opening just don’t get it. The longer school is out, the worse for children. Newly learned skills are forgotten. On ordinary summer breaks the learning loss is at least 20 percent, international researches show. That’s why for several weeks into class resumption students are reviewed on the previous semester’s lessons.

Schools follow a progression of syllabuses per year, from the Dept. of Education. Every syllabus graduates to the next. Principals ensure that each grade syllabus is completed; teachers monitor that each child catches up.

Most subjects in the syllabuses follow international standards. Reading, writing, math, science are interrelated universal skills that require honing in tandem and sequence. E.g.: read and write numbers, then addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, onto fractions, decimals, equations, graphs, angles, dimensions, etc. Miss one and the rest become unintelligible.

As it is, our primary education already is behind world standards. In a 2018 test of 15-year-olds from 79 countries, Filipinos were the lowest in reading comprehension, and second lowest in math and science. They likely would fare poorly in high school and flunk college admission.

The 2018 Program for International Student Assessment noted that Philippine class sizes were the world’s largest, and teacher-to-student ratio the lowest. Too, while Filipino 15-year-olds in private schools were world-class, overall scores were pulled down by those in public schools. That denoted social divide: well-off kids would advance in life, and the disadvantaged left behind. Taken as a whole, the country would remain backward as richer nations advanced in technology and living standards. Income gaps within the Philippines and with other countries will widen. Education can equalize.

Released in Nov. 2019, the findings sent DepEd adjusting policies. Sec. Leonor Briones had the students tested by PISA to gauge the new K+12 curriculum, then on its fifth year. Before the Kindergarten + Grades 1-12, the Philippines had mere ten inadequate years of basic education. Multinational firms’ recruiters treated our college sophomores then as mere high schoolers. A recent study shows Filipinos to have the lowest IQ in ASEAN. Adding kindergarten and two extra class years will bring Filipino learners up to par.

COVID-19 is disrupting the program, though. Prolonged “walang pasok” due to lockdowns – nearly five months now – has deleterious effects. Learners can lose interest in school altogether, for economic and other causes. Families that lost livelihoods from pandemic may have grown dependent on minors as breadwinners from odd jobs. Parents might marry off daughters, for one less mouth to feed. Housewives now forced to earn a living need elder offspring to babysit siblings.

In the Aug. 24 back-to-school, children’s health should be of prime concern. In cities with high contagion rates, face-to-face classes cannot be done. Community transmission is too risky. But in areas in our 7,641 islands where C-19 never penetrated, physical classes can be held as before. Schools are not only for learning, but also emotional security of growing children. In poor barrios they are also feeding centers.

Still local leaders must enforce anti-outbreak precautions. Hand-washing long has been part of schooling; masking and safe distancing will need to be reinforced. Classroom instruction, honed through the millennia, is always preferable. Teachers are able to personalize the progress of every learner. This is especially so in college courses. Maritime and engineering students need face-to-face instruction on heavy machineries, STI Colleges vice chairman-CEO Monico Jacob exemplifies.

DepEd recast last Apr. its old “blended learning” modules. C-19 stricken cities will feature distance learning. That is, via internet, television, radio, or printed materials. It’s tricky. Though ably drilled by DepEd and private administrators, teachers will be unable accurately to check students’ attendance or attentiveness. Video-conferencing apps have “waiting rooms” for one-on-one chats while the main session goes on, but all-important eye contact is still gone. Other creative methods are needed.

Crucial most of all in home schooling is parental supervision. But not all parents are adept at child education, especially if they have low education. Working parents may also not be around, and be too pooped when they get home to check on the children’s progress.

Briones has the solution here: follow-up tutoring, she told Sapol radio show Saturday. As in other countries that have adopted online learning, part-time teachers can be hired or retooled for it. A talent pool is waiting to be tapped: senior, comorbid, pregnant teachers who cannot do physical classes; displaced mentors from private schools that closed shop due to low enrolment; unemployed recent college grads.

In that regard politicians can help by appropriating the funds for tutoring. They can bridge technology snags: emulate Manila Mayor Isko Moreno in giving poor students tablets with loadable pocket Wi-Fi. NGOs and civic clubs quietly are doing the same nationwide. In areas with poor internet the politicos can distribute radio or TV sets. They might wish to push for a plenary vote on extending ABS-CBN’s franchise – if only to restore its Knowledge Channel free TV in the hinterlands of the Cordilleras, Panay, Samar-Leyte, Palawan, and Muslim Mindanao.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

My book “Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government” is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Expos%C3%A9s-Investigative-Reporting-Clean-Government-ebook/dp/B00EPX01BG

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