INSTITUTIONALIZING BLENDED SETUP

The author is Teacher Tarlac Province III English at Capas National High School,Schools Division of RAFAEL M. DEL MONTE

The Department of Education said institutionalizing a blended setup in basic education can help manage the effects of an increasing number of learners and the impacts of natural calamities.

The agency is also looking into coming up with a disaster-resilient design for schools. According to DepEd, institutionalizing blended learning in basic education schools can solve classroom shortage. Blended learning includes arrangements for both in-person, online, and other modular or alternative modes.

The Department said it is quite difficult to resolve classroom shortage. Besides the backlogs, it’s a perennial problem, because of the rising number of enrollees every year, and the annual calamities hitting the country.

Typhoon Karding brought damage to around 165 schools, which hikes the estimated cost for repair of schools to PHP1.169 billion.

The DepEd is also looking into coming up with an improved design of schools that may be resilient to various calamities.

The Department is studying disaster-resilient schools, in collaboration with the private sector and other organizations. They are reviewing how to improve school designs so it can be disaster-resilient.

As of now, typhoon-affected schools automatically shift to alternative learning modalities during a calamity.

The Department is already starting to download or looking to download funds to regions to start the requirements and build temporary learning spaces or other interventions but this is a developing situation.

The author is Teacher

-oOo

III at Caduang Tete Elementary School