REVOLUTION OF EDUCATION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

JELICEL P. MANALO

Most of us believe that education is the key to success. We spent most of our lives in school to achieve our goals and acquired skills that we need for survival. That’s why our government’s top priority and has the biggest budget allocation is the Department of Education.

With the pandemic going on, we still need to produce globally competitive and life-long learners, to make it possible, our educators extend their knowledge and wisdom in embracing the new trends of education in the new normal scenario with the support of other stakeholders and the government. It is really a challenge on our educational system to deal with this pandemic, we need to ensure the wellness of the teachers and students while providing them with 21st century’s knowledge and skills.

To do this, the Department is working to provide professional growth for teachers, they are offering different seminar and trainings to discuss contingency plans and share strategies in implementing distance-learning to cater the needs of teachers and students.

For the learners, the Department has designed and online platform known as the DepEd Commons, it is designed to support distance learning modalities that serves as online review and Open Educational Resources. Unfortunately, not all learners and teachers can access the platform and some other areas don’t have an internet access. Our government still working on this matter, realignment of budget and collaborative meetings are done to support this and to provide the needs of our learners.

As DepEd Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones once said “Education must continue even in times of crisis whether it may be a calamity, disaster, emergency, quarantine, or even war”.

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The author is Master Teacher 1 at St. Vincent of Quebiawan Integrated School