Learning expectations of Ayta learners under the New Normal Education System.

MARIZEN C. TOLENTINO

The Pandemic – that is COVID-19, has changed the course of history for good. The effects and consequences of which is unprecedented. On a political point of view, as long as people do away with hard-headedness and clearly accepts the fact that the government is doing its very best to cope with the predicament, everything is under control. Everything will be back to the “New Normal” as soon as we flatten the curve. New Normal simply means that we can go back to our normal way of life but with new things to cope and understand. The things that we have to cope and understand are dangerously upon us. Priorities have changed and health and safety is at the forefront. Changes have affected our lives in every inch that we know it and so as in the education system of our country. Education for an average Filipino family is solely the gas that revs the engines of a good life in their future. Not until COVID-19 has halted everything to a standstill.

No one gets left behind – the battle cry of the Department of Education. DepEd’s thrust is to educate everyone even children in the far-flung and less fortunate such as the Ayta tribe. The cultural minorities known as the Ayta have coped with the educational process for the longest time and the Department has offered programs for them to realize their full potential. As with everything else in this world, they are not spared from the pandemic directly or indirectly, so much so, on their take in the educational system.

This coming August 24, 2020, Education will open formally but not in the usual four corners of the classroom. The 10 million learners or 36% of the potential enrollees for the school year 2020-2021 – according to the recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture – enrolled with absolute uncertainty of what to expect in the new normal of education. Even the Ayta learner is beset with the same predicament as the date comes closer and closer. DepEd will be implementing online learning resources such as DepEd Commons, TV and radio-based solutions will also be launched in areas with limited access to the Internet, modular distance learning and blended learning options for the marginalized sector of the society who are deprived of the access to technology – the Ayta learner included.

Learning Modules have already been developed and are up and running as to the reproduction perse. Teachers in the upland will be trained to deliver learning in the modular distance learning scheme to make sure that learning, still, will happen even on the edges of the mountains. As for the case of how modular learning can be unpacked for the Ayta children, an integral resource in the family – the parents – should be tapped. Indeed, parents and guardians must be empowered to help in today’s learning process. All of these issues and developments under the new normal of education are offered by the Department of Education to ensure that there will be learning continuity under the new normal.

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The author is OIC/ Head Teacher III at Villa Maria Integrated School