Nonprofit Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) has demanded the government to allow the resumption of face to face classes “as soon as possible” to recover from learning losses suffered by the country the past years.
PBEd Executive Director Lovelaine B. Basillote on Thursday asked the government to open up schools for face to face learning the soonest. Granting schools the authority to resume physical classes will provide some 2.7 million out of school students the choice to enroll, or else they will finish the year without any progress in their formal education, she said.
“In terms of when, I personally think that we should do it [resumption of face to face classes] as soon as possible,” Basillote said in a news briefing.
She argued extending the period of only remote learning will reduce the learning adjusted years of schooling (LAYS) of students. According to the World Bank, LAYS is measured by combining standard metrics of education, which center on the quantity of schooling for the average person, with its qualitative aspects, which focus on what the person learned from attending school.
Basillote said the projected annual income of a Filipino goes down by at least $500 annually for every year of skipping formal education.
“If you add that up, it’s really significant,” Basillote emphasized. “I think we should do it as soon as possible to really minimize the learning losses.”
As to the question of how in the heat of the Covid-19 pandemic, the PBEd official explained the government can come up with considerations that must be taken into account before permitting schools to reopen for face to face learning.
Basillote said the government should look at, above all else, the number of cases first. Likewise, it must study the capacity of the health-care system to accommodate patients should there be a spike in the transmission of the virus.
She said the Philippines can no longer afford to slow down the education of its students after ranking dead last in international assessments like the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2019.
The Department of Education (Deped) has mandated schools to shift to blended learning, in the form of modular and online classes, to secure the safety of students in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the lack of learning devices and Internet needed to participate in the virtual classes prevented millions from attending school in this academic calendar.
Based on records from the DepEd, some 2.7 million students across all levels did not enroll for school year 2020-2021.
As to whether the country is fit to allow the conduct of face-to-face classes is a different question altogether. The Philippines is nearing to breach 500,000 cases, with close to 10,000 deaths, and on Wednesday the first case of the new Covid-19 variant was detected here.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila