STAKEHOLDERS’ INVOLVEMENT AND COMMITMENT IN EDUCATION AMIDST COVID-19

The author is Teacher III at

The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a world health crisis. It drastically changed the teaching and learning set –up globally. The chaos is felt by many families around the world, remote distance learning or home schooling is not only a massive shock to parents’productivity, but also to children’s social life and learning. Without face-to-face learning, the ability to meet physically really becomes difficult for the learners, teachers, parents/ guardians and other partners to feel like they are still part of the school community. In this time of uncertainty, a call for new ideas and skills to come up with new solutions to the problems from the school heads and teachers are really needed.

Engaging stakeholders in this time of life’s uncertainty, is one of the best creative solutions to at least lessen if not totally eradicate the negative impact of pandemic in the education of our school children.

Kindly allow me to bring out these three (3) strong points on how the school community motivates and engages the partners of education in this time of pandemic. First, it is important for school leaders to actively connect with stakeholders, open communication with them will definitely help for a meaningful interaction. Since meeting face-to-face is really hard in this time, and communication happens remotely, schools should reach out to potentials sponsors, donors, parents, and other partners by phone call, messenger / facebook, and other social media platforms.

Second, being transparent to where their donations were spent and provide feedback on how their help and contributions made a positive impact on the learners and to the performance of the school as a whole.

Lastly, appreciate the stakeholders or giving recognition to school donors and partners is one of the best gifts that a school can give to show how grateful the recipient is to the giver. With these aforementioned ways, stakeholders’utmost support and commitment towards offering educational opportunities (Programs, Projects. Activities and Services) to our learners amidst the pandemic will always be possible and certainly provide impact

Pandemic or not, leaders must always build a strong partnership and harmonious relationship as well to the stakeholders. Achieving DepEd mission and vision would never be possible without the collaboration and support of all stakeholders as one of the strong forces and partners in the provision of quality education under the spirit of shared duties and responsibility between and among the stakeholders.

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The author is Master Teacher I at Sto. Domingo ES, Lubao North District