Can’t schools resume where they’re ready – as usual?

Can't public schools reopen wherever they're ready? It's usual anyway. Classes don't all start on the day the Dept. of Education sets. In these 7,641 islands there's always disruption somewhere. Typhoon, fire, flood, landslide, earthquake, volcano eruption, tsunami, rebellion retards entire provinces or towns. Schoolhouses are turned into evacuation centers for days or weeks. Sometimes teachers simply are unavailable. Still DepEd district supervisors, school principals, and teachers swiftly adopt contingencies. They stick to sequential syllabuses per subject for the fixed number of schooldays. Through weekend makeup classes and rush alternative workbooks, affected schoolchildren are able to catch up.

That old normal is valid more than ever in this pandemic. Ready areas can be made to proceed with "blended learning". Unready ones can be helped to catch up with them as before.

COVID-19 has set back schooling nationwide by two months. Last Friday, President Rody Duterte had to further delay to Oct. 5 the already late Aug. 24 back-to-school. There was generally a sigh of relief in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, and Laguna. The capital region, one Central Luzon province, and most of Southern Tagalog mainland just weren't ready.

With coronavirus infections surging there, preparations couldn't be completed. Dozens of "modular learning materials" needed to be printed per Grade 1 to 12, for distribution to millions of students. Yet there weren't enough duplicators for it, plus reams of copy paper, ink, staplers, folders, and packaging envelopes. DepEd funds were rushed to the field; still supplies weren't always in stock. Some city halls readily lent photocopiers to schools; others weren't as quick. Resourceful faculty borrowed materials from neighborhood businesses; teachers may not solicit from parents or use personal money for official purposes. To make matters worse, the retightened lockdown in those regions forced schoolmasters to retain only skeletal workforces. The President had to make a call.

Things aren't as bad in erstwhile hotspots. Contagion has subsided so community quarantines have been loosened in Batangas; Cebu, Mandaue, and Lapu-Lapu cities; Minglanilla and Consolacion in Cebu province; and Zamboanga City. The rest of the country has even less restrictions. Some island provinces like Batanes, Siquijor, and Dinagat have no infectees at all. Why not let them reopen schools ahead? After all, they're ready. There should be no face-to-face classes, of course, and local officials must maintain anti-COVID precautions.

That too is now Duterte's call, DepEd Sec. Leonor Briones told Sapol radio show Saturday. Previously the DepEd was legislated to open the new schoolyear no later than August. A new enactment amid COVID-19 transferred to the President the authority to hold school or not during emergencies. Perhaps localized assessments can be made for Duterte's appreciation. Already decided is that ongoing private schools are to stay; the rest may open as planned on Aug. 24, so long as not face-to-face classes.

Resuming schooling is as existential as reviving the economy. The longer the school break, the more the loss of skills students learned the previous year. Risk is grave of youths losing interest in school altogether, leading to aimlessness, juvenile delinquency, and poverty. In poor locales school is the venue for feeding malnourished tots. School is also an emotional security blanket; Briones recounted on-air children aged 9 and 10 writing her that they miss their teachers, classmates, and the joys of learning.

Social equity is also a factor. Some private schools never stopped classes during the lockdowns, but just shifted to online mentoring. They've had the modules for decades, said Atty. Joseph Estrada, managing director of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations. Fortunate are learners whose educated parents kept them enrolled. Due to prolonged "walang pasok", those in public schools will be left behind. The effects are life-long, in productivity and incomes. Norway calculated "conservatively" at 1,809 kroner (P8,823) the cost to a learner per day of nursery to high school shutdown. Half of that is the lost income of parents who must babysit instead of work. The other half is how much less today's schooler will earn in the future because of stunted education. Incomes are much higher in Scandinavia. But Filipino policymakers can derive ideas from that. The longer schools stay closed, the more the poor lose. (Likely due to lost livelihoods parents transferred more than 400,000 offspring from private to public schools, Briones cited June enrollment stats.)

It will be a tough call for Duterte. Of 23.2 million enrollees nationwide, 21.6 million are in public schools. One in three is in Metro Manila and Southern Tagalog mainland. That more than seven million children would be affected by school unpreparedness is boggling. Still he might see results by September, and so advance school opening.

Meantime, the printing of homeschooling lessons must be finished. Requesting anonymity, one Metro Manila teacher has set up smartphone chat groups of her pupils to reintroduce them to schooling. She has another chat group of parents. (It works on Facebook Messenger even if the learner's gadget has no cash load; not bad, for starters.) Another teacher in Southern Tagalog is training to teach subjects other than her specialization, since the modular materials so requires. Both suggested improvements in the television component, since very difficult to access even on government-run stations.

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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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