Convoluted learning system
SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACTED by the current COVID 19 threat is our education system. Immensely scuttled are plans of the Department of Education which seems at a loss as to how effective it could handle the crisis situation brought about by the corona virus.
In a meeting with President Duterte recently, Education Secretary Leonor Briones laid out emergency plans which the President immediately approved and supported. Saying education is a primordial task, he voiced out his sentiment regarding the continuity of government support towards uplifting our country's drive to literacy and our readiness to global chal l en ges.
So now, we hear of distance learning, alternative learning and blended learning, the latter involving face-to-face system and on-line learning where computers are the main tools, aside from the traditional methods in imparting knowledge to our students.
The long vacation from school predictably made our students a little lazy and complacent. There is a need to motivate them again to acclimatize them to instructions, lectures and the like.
The big problem of underprivileged parents is the lack of funds to purchase even the cheapest brands of computers. This is where the department comes in to help the distressed p ar en t s.
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte proposed the tapping of internet shops to make available their computer units to students, with proper monitoring by their mentors. This is a fine idea to bridge the lack of computers of poor residents in that city. Can it sustain the idea?
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The Department of Education, like the Departments of Social Welfare and Development, Public Works and Highways and of health, is the most belaboured department in the entire Duterte administration.
It gets a big chunk of the nation's budget and it should function cohesively and effectively for the benefit of million of students under its care.
With the new approach to learning, the Department of Education needs to focus its massive resources to ascertain the effectiveness of its new approaches to instruction. Many students need to adjust to the new system which demands the services of plenty of computers. And what about the beginners, those without basic fundamental knowledge of computers? Can we switfly provide them with the skills to operate computers? Your move, DepEd sirs.