What would education be like in the midst of this unprecedented crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic?
The Department of Education has already issued the school calendar and activities for School Year 2020-2021, composed of 203 class days starting with the formal school opening on August 24, 2020 until the end of school year on April 30, 2021.
Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said “physical distancing will still be required, which will necessitate schools to combine face-to-face learning with distance learning.”
Briones said private schools and state or local universities and colleges that offer basic education “will be allowed to open classes within the period authorized” by Republic Act 7797, which is on the first Monday of June but not later than the last day of August provided that “no face-to-face classes will be allowed earlier than August 24 and from then on, face-to-face classes may be conducted only in areas allowed to open physically.”
Upon the recommendations of the Commission on Higher Education and as approved by Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Higher Education Institutions may open as early as August 2020, as long as they use flexible learning arrangements.
But even as the phased reopening of schools gets under way, would parents even be comfortable sending their kids back to classrooms?
Classes restarted on Wednesday in South Korea for the first time since December 2019. But students at 66 schools in Incheon were sent home only three hours after arriving for classes because two students tested positive for Covid-19.
France recorded 70 new Covid-19 cases in schools, a week after the country let more than 1 million kids go back to class.
Once our students are allowed back in classrooms, even at least part-time, what kind of prevention, detection and safety measures against Covid-19 can schools guarantee?
Covid-19 is highly infectious. Schools were closed down early precisely because their population densities provided more opportunities for transmission. Classrooms and campuses are mostly shared spaces, somewhat similar to a crowded city. Inviting students and teachers back would require at least some level of testing (and if needed also contact tracing) among students, teachers and other school workers.
Then there are also cases where students (from other regions) have to live inside school campuses or near them, in dormitories and other kinds of student housing. Where will these students live now? Where and how will they eat? How will they share bathrooms and other spaces? Dormitories, for instance, should certainly have fewer students, if not just one occupant per room. They would have to modify operations to protect the health and well-being of students and staff.
Education officials and schools are all talking about remote learning environments (the subject of a previous editorial), but online education requires a lot of logistics and support.
Lack of access to the Internet and tech gadgets for online use is a problem in many households. According to the National Telecommunications Commission, as of December 2019, 67 percent of the Philippine population has access to the Internet. But the quality of this access varies significantly throughout the country, depending mainly on the network and the kind of service one can afford.
We have already seen many local stories and photos on social media showing students climbing trees and mountains or going to all sorts of troubles just to get a good Internet signal so they can submit school requirements.
Parents of students, especially those in private schools, were particularly irate, not only because certain schools seem to be prioritizing school requirements over their children’s welfare, but also because their kids are not getting the education they paid for, with online learning schemes causing more problems in their homes at a time when families are already beset with problems.
Many of them have asked these schools for refunds or rebates, if not on tuition then at least on the many other miscellaneous fees that can add up to thousands, which their children can no longer avail of, like library, laboratory and gym fees, Wi-fi services and air-conditioned classrooms.
They also argue that remote learning schemes should cost significantly less, that there is no substitute for in-person teaching, and that there are subjects and courses that cannot easily be converted to remote or online instruction.
Despite announcements from education officials about class openings, it seems the only thing that is certain are more uncertainties, which students, parents, teachers and schools will face due to this pandemic.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano