Education in the New Normal
As the classes resumed, unceasing students’ concerns and teachers’ outcry were in the limelight — exposing the disadvantages that these learning solutions are posing.
While the country is fighting the challenge brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Education (DepEd) adopt and implement the flexible model of blended learning despite many oppositions. As the classes resumed, unceasing students’ concerns and teachers’ outcry were in the limelight —exposing the disadvantages that these learning solutions are posing.
While pandemic has laid bare in most education systems all over the world, Philippine HEIs goes on through utilizing virtual classrooms or primary online educational platforms such as Zoom, Google Classroom, Messenger, Edmodo, Facebook, and Youtube to name a few — to host the blended and distance learning (Tria, 2020).
The call for #LigtasNaBalikEskuwela (Safe Back to School) is more likely than an absolute academic freeze as it holds the government accountable in all the demands of the people such as pushing for mass testing, national-based contact tracing, and flattening of the curve; while an ‘academic freeze’ will only be a short-term solution as it has no beneficial effects for the majority (Malipot, 2020) and appeases only on the personal belief for some students. With the former, no university around the country including students and administrative staff will be in danger when implementing a safer return to school.
Strengthening educational planning and health measures in schools guarantees an opportunity to continue learning while preventing the spread of the virus (Toquero, 2020). It does not only value continuous learning and, hence, pressures the government to take appropriate action to make education possible. Besides, prioritizing literacy is a future-proofing move to ensure that the world adeptly deals with a future virus outbreak.
“…learning should never stop, but in this new world we’re living in, learning should be safe as well.”
The pandemic has helped expose and magnify the challenges in the Philippine education sector which have been going on even before the pandemic. Issues concerning the lack of facilities, shortage of faculty and staff, and the teachers’ well-deserved compensation remain unaddressed (Teodoro, 2020).
Seeking to effectively engage the students in this ‘new norm’ is difficult but manageable through proper planning of appropriate, effective, and sustainable interventions. CHED and DepEd must see the pandemic as an opportunity to tackle our ever-existing problems in education, ignore band-aid solutions, and start utilizing research-based and future-proofing solutions instead. These agencies must understand that leaving present concerns unaddressed will only make the impact of the crisis worse and unbearable for everyone over time. Sure, learning should never stop, but in this new world we’re living in, learning should be safe as well; and we, as citizens, should take the role of watchdogs to make sure that our government is helping us make that happen.