The Face of Education Under New Normal

Niño Jericho D. Canlas

The Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus. The virus began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.

On January 2020, the Department of Health in the Philippines reported the first case of Covid-19 in the country. Since then, the country implemented health protocols in order to eliminate the spread of the virus and for the past months, different places in the country undergone lockdowns to control the transmission of the virus.

As the number of Covid-19 cases increases in time, the crisis has affected about 27 million learners, 1 million teachers and non-teaching staff, as well as the families of learners. Due to the arising issue in education the Department of Education started to plan the upcoming school year 2020-2021.

The Department of Education (DepEd) recently announced that classes for the next school year would begin on August 24, 2020. The department will device a Self-Learning Module that will be provided to every child to temporarily replace face-to-face classes due to the public health state of the country.

This self-learning module is integrated with different alternative learning delivery modalities such as modular, television-based, radio-based instruction, blended learning, and online learning. These alternatives will address the needs and means of children across the country, considering the economic status of their families and their means to access these modalities.

The Covid-19 crisis has opened an opportunity to seek new ways of learning for Filipino children, teachers and other educational officials and stakeholders. It is a calling for each one of us to be more adaptive, innovative and creative. This situation allows us to come as one together, to forge connections, and to share what works.

This is now the perfect time for ground-breaking educational methods and practices and go outside our traditional teaching-learning techniques to create a new trend of educational system that will brand the next generation of Filipino professionals and leaders.

The author is Teacher

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I at Nuestra Señora Del Pilar integrated Schoool