The fate of COVID-19 vaccines and our children

As the world turns, we await the effectiveness of the new COVID-19 vaccines. Will the vaccines be safe in the experimental phases? Final phases? Notwithstanding the test of time?

The US Food and Drug Administration voted in favor of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use approval last week. According to the National Public Radio (NPR) e-journal, Moderna said that its experimental vaccine was 94.5 percent effective in preventing disease, as analyzed during its clinical trial with 30,000 volunteers.

The report also stated, “both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use the same technology to make their vaccines. It’s based on a molecule known as mRNA, or messenger RNA. That molecule contains genetic instructions for making proteins inside cells. The Moderna and Pfizer studies were conducted using slightly different protocols. To be counted as a COVID-19 case, participants in the Moderna study had to have at least two symptoms of disease in addition to a positive test for the virus. The Pfizer study required only one symptom. Also, Moderna waited 14 days following the second injection to begin counting cases; Pfizer’s study started counting at seven days.” There are currently more than 50 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in trials.

Meanwhile in the homefront, the Department of Health (DOH) said three coronavirus vaccine manufacturers have passed the country’s ethics review board (ERB) – a requirement needed to conduct clinical trials in the Philippines. Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Europe-based vaccine makers Janssen of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, as well as China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals, got the approval of the ERB. According to reports, the country has so far secured a supply of at least 2.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, after the government and private firms signed a deal last Nov. 27.

As usual, the development and acquisition of the vaccines are going through a rat race, full of politics and controversies. The first countries to complete a large scale, phase 3 clinical trial are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Canada and Britain. Although China and Russia have vaccines which are already being administered, they have not given reports of completed clinical trials. Sanamagan! Aren’t we receiving vaccines from China?

The moral lesson here is to be very careful with the vaccines you administer to yourself, to your children and grandchildren, etc. Don’t ever forget the Dengvaxia scare. It was a new drug. We got excited about it. But it seemed to have brought us more misery than comfort.

By the way, NPR also noted that although the US Food and Drug Administration authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine could come within a day or two, they also cautioned the public that life may get back to normal by next fall, September 2021.

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As the year comes to an end, many are asking what 2021 will bring. Will we be able to see the sun shine again? Are we going to be able to go out like we used to? Will students be able to go back to school and have face-to-face classes?

COVID-19 surely hit us bad. It’s not healthy for growing children to stay indoors all the time and spend so much time on the computers for online classes. The different modes of online classes created by the different school systems are also mind-boggling. Some schools created a mode to ease the burden for their administrators and faculty members, leaving the students to do more of “self-study” through the so-called modules and asynchronous online mode.

An educator would know that this is not the way to teach children in basic education (primary and secondary levels). Children need constant guidance. They cannot and should not be left alone. Discussions are inevitable. At the onset, this mode was mostly welcomed by parents and students and, of course, their teachers. But later they realized (or must realize) that the students will not develop the much needed skills and build vital knowledge structures they need in order to be ready for the future.

Without COVID-19 when students where going to classes, face-to-face, our children’s educational aptitude was already sinking at the bottom in Southeast Asia, not to mention the world. When COVID-19 shook our world, the Department of Education announced the removal of 60 percent of the curriculum. This is alarming but it is what they can only achieve. Mind you, many private schools follow DepEd’s basic minimum curriculum requirement.

To point out how COVID-19 has disrupted our children’s education, the United Nations reported that the pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 percent of the world’s student population, up to 99 percent in low and lower-middle income countries. Truly, education has changed dramatically this year. This is very concerning and must not be ignored.

Just last week, a news report showed the result of an international assessment on the performance of grade school students conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The report confirmed the results of previous studies showing Filipino students lagging behind their counterparts from other countries in mathematics and science at fourth and eighth grades.

Grade 4 students from the Philippines scored the lowest among 58 countries that participated in the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Filipino students scored an average of 297 in mathematics and 249 in science, way below the low international benchmark of 400. In contrast, Singapore, which obtained the highest average in both Grade 4 assessments, scored 625 in mathematics and 595 in science.

The assessment seeks to provide country participants with information to make “evidence-based decisions to improve educational policies related to mathematics and science teaching and learning.”

If and assuming that the report is valid and correct, then we must reevaluate and assess the implementation vis a vis the result and impact in education of the language policy of our country as stated in the language provision of the 1987 Constitution.

The issue of national language as medium of instruction is crucial to achieve proficiency in reading, writing and math. After more than three decades of the implementation of the national language policy, it is high time to examine whether we met the desired result. Obviously, the research of the SEA-PLM, assuming correct, would show that something went wrong. Our poor showing would validate that it is perhaps the policy on medium of instruction that is erroneous or the implementation that is faulty.

During the drafting of the “freedom Constitution,” the pro-Filipino advocates argued that the use of English as a medium of instruction is preventing the youth from learning and understanding better, and they prevailed. With the deteriorating proficiency of the Filipino students, is it correct to put the blame on Filipino language as an inadequate medium for learning?

Now, if this is true, same study must be done on schools, mostly private, who adequately implemented the policy. If it will give the same result, then we must concede that the policy is a failure. But if there will be a discrepancy in the result, then all fingers must point to DepEd as the primary implementer of the policy.

The descending proficiency in reading, writing and math is just the tip of the iceberg. The miseducation and inadequacy of education is manifested in the proliferation of fake news, the deterioration of our values, historical revisionism, brain drain, lost of national identity, etc.

A relevant education must develop all the academic competencies required to prepare the students for global competition and ingrain nationalism as the basic quality of our future leaders.