Parents’ guidance is critical

Cristina L. Pamintuan

THERE have been news articles recently about suicides of students because of difficulties in answering self-learning modules. Whether or not these stories are true, it is unfair to blame the Department of Education for these incidents.

First of all, there may be other factors which led to the deaths of these young people, not because of the modules.

According to the DepEd, there is a need to see the causal connection between the modules and the students’condition, and even psychologists could not make the connection between self-learning modules to suicides.

Also, there have already been suicide incidents attempts even before the school year started, so there is no direct correlation between these incidents with the SLMs.

The agency also has also been conducting a mental awareness orientations for parents, students and teachers to inculcate the importance of this issue to them.

Because of the pandemic, there are no face-to-face classes yet, so learners are not that pressured to perform their tasks, submit their works, and answer all at once. They have flexible time for learning under the distance learning modal i t y.

The DepEd does not take this issue lightly, but it sees no justification why students would commit suicide just because they cannot perform their assigned tasks. Parents have been encouraged by the agency to guide their children, as they are now learning from the confines of their own homes.

Now, more than ever, parents’guidance is critical.