Developing a post-covid pedagogy

“Whose tomorrow is tomorrow?

“And whose world is the world?”

—From “Solidarity Song” by Bertolt Brecht

Covid-19 represents a huge challenge to the officials of the Philippine trifocal educational system—deped, Ched and Tesda. how to provide educational services in Covid times? how to teach while maintaining social distance? how to provide students rounded education by going virtual, without face-to-face instruction and interaction? how to ask tens of thousands of teachers and trainors to abandon old classroom teaching techniques by going digital?

And yes, how to reach the excluded youth—those without the means to purchase the digital learning devices, those whose parents have lost jobs and livelihoods, and those living in poor communities devastated and isolated by the pandemic? Is education, modern society’s weapon for inclusion, becoming once more an instrument for exclusion like in the old colonial times?

But even as they grapple with the difficult challenge of adjusting education to new teaching formats and using non-conventional educational technologies, the education planners have to address other critical policy issues facing the sector. In this connection, Unesco’s International Commission on the Futures of education (ICFE) came up with nine policy recommendations requiring “concrete actions today that will advance education tomorrow.” These are as follows:

1. Commit to strengthen education as a common good. education, like health, is part of the “social commons” defined as the sociocultural resources that all members of society must be able to share and enjoy. If education and health are accessible to only a few, then society becomes highly unequal. It is, therefore, the bounden duty of the State to continue making education, from

elementary to tertiary levels, accessible and affordable to all, with or without Covid-19. ICFE wrote: “In education as in health, we are safe when everybody is safe; we flourish when everybody flourishes.”

2. Expand the definition of the right to education so that it addresses the importance of connectivity and access to knowledge and information. Indeed, learning in today’s world requires digital connectivity. And the right to education includes the right to such connectivity and access of learners to relevant information and knowledge. In short, the right to education does not end in being accepted as an enrolee in a school. In the Philippines, the task for the education planners is to continue building up the digital infrastructure for all schools nationwide, especially in the urban and rural poor communities.

3. Value the teaching profession and teacher collaboration. Philippine mass and social media are full of discussions on the plight of the underpaid and overworked teachers, both those in the public and private schools. Like the health personnel, they are the frontliners in the difficult task of honing the skills and developing the potentials of the youth. All possible support must be extended to them. Likewise, they should be given space to develop academic courses in a flexible and autonomous manner. And yes, academic freedom and the search for truth, be it in science or economic or political courses, must be respected.

4. Promote student, youth and children’s participation and rights. According to the ICFE, the “construction of desirable change,” for example adjustment in the curriculum, in the educational system should involve the students and the youth. It should not be a one-way topdown process. Participation can be secured through information sharing, consultations and constructive dialogues. The ICFE justifies such participation in the name of “intergenerational justice” based on democratic principles.

5. Protect the social spaces provided by schools as education is transformed. The ICFE explains that the “school as a physical space is indispensable.” however, the traditional classroom organization “must give way to a variety of ways of ‘doing school.’” Of course, the meaning of what a school is— physical or digital or combined—is likely to change given the shift to distance education and a variety of blended learning systems coming on stream.

6. Make free and open source technologies available to teachers and students. Again, this is related to the phenomenon of digitalization. In the academic circles, there are widespread calls for the adoption of open access digital tools to overcome the commercial tentacles of the private companies trying to control the digital platforms. Also, “education cannot thrive with ready-made content built outside of the pedagogical space and outside of human relationships between teachers and students.”

7. Ensure scientific literacy within the curriculum. It is unavoidable that there will be so many changes in the curricular offerings and modes of instruction given the adjustments imposed by the pandemic. however, such changes should be subjected to rigorous academic assessment and scientific tests. The pandemic is not an excuse to lower standards and resort to “short-cuts” in the delivery of instruction. There should be a serious and continuing effort to weed out misinformation.

8. Protect domestic and international financing of public education. No comment.

9. Advance global solidarity to end current levels of inequality.

Ms. Sahle-work Zewde, chair of the ICFE, gave an eloquent explanation for this call in her introduction of the ICFE report as follows:

“It is evident that we cannot return to the world as it was before…our common humanity necessitates global solidarity. We cannot accept the levels of inequality that have been permitted to emerge on our shared planet. It is particularly important that the world supports developing countries with investment in 21st century education infrastructures; this will require the mobilization of resources and support from developed countries, in particular with debt cancellation, restructuring, and new financing... Already we see that the disruptions brought on by the pandemic are exacerbating inequalities both within and across countries…”

Ms. Zewde concludes that the pandemic has the potential to radically reshape the world. The problem is that the re-shaping is being led mostly by the developed countries and their global corporate behemoths, including the big pharmas and telcos. Covid-19 has bared that the re-shaping process is unequal and creating more imbalances and inequalities at the national and global levels. humanity cannot passively sit back and observe what plays out.

The ICFE, therefore, calls for a global order based on “renewed commitments to international cooperation and multilateralism, together with a revitalized global solidarity that has empathy and an appreciation of our common humanity at its core.”

The point is that the pandemic presents an opportunity for humanity to help shape a better world—in the education sector and other areas of life on earth.