The selective return of face-to-face (FTF), in-person or on-campus classes in nearly 400 more schools in Central Visayas invites guarded optimism.
Mae Fhel K. Gom-os reported in SunStar Cebu on March 19, 2022, that 377 more public and private schools have implemented limited FTF classes since January 2022. In 2021, only 10 public schools held FTF classes.
As of Mar. 18, 783 schools in Central Visayas have communicated their intent to hold the limited FTF set-up, which blends the FTF and distance learning modes.
A school needs to have the Department of Education (DepEd) safety seal before it can implement the limited FTF set-up. Physical readiness for limited FTF requires resources that challenge many public institutions, since schools in Central Visayas that were structurally damaged by Typhoon Odette in December 2021 also require expensive retrofitting.
Limitations in the number of students using a classroom to maintain physical distancing to preempt or limit the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infection add to the logistical challenges of school administrators, already grappling with lack of classrooms and laboratories even before the pandemic.
Despite the lowered alert level for Central Visayas, the continuing pandemic concerns stakeholders because the vaccination rates among students, faculty, and staff may not be as desired.
School and family funds to cover for expenses that may be incurred from infection and related contingencies are scarce or non-existent.
Yet, there is a need to revert from remote and blended learning to the FTF set-up as soon as it is safe for all.
The impact of the pandemic on the formal education of the 27 million public school students who enrolled as of December 2021 has yet to be assessed in the long term, but Filipino youths are undergoing the world’s longest experimentation with distance learning, points out a Dec. 1, 2021 article on Time.com.
The same Time.com article reports that after the 20-month lockdown period—“one of the world’s longest lockdowns”—only 5,000 students, a “tiny fraction” of the 27 million enrollees in 2021, took part in a two-month piloting of the FTF arrangement in 2021.
Remote and blended learning, while putting at bay the Covid-19 risks presented by in-person classes, arguably create considerable disruptions among youths and families, especially those economically displaced by the lockdowns and thus, unable to afford the gadgets, digital literacy, and parental readiness to mentor their children that distance learning demands.
A Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) study found that oral reading fluency—“the ability to quickly and accurately read aloud”— “largely stopped” among first through fourth graders in the U.S. in spring 2020 when schools in the country closed due to Covid-19, and “picked up in fall 2020” when teachers were more prepared for the reopening of the school year, according to a Mar. 9, 2021 article posted on news.stanford.edu.
Reading fluency is a crucial skill, a “gateway” or building block to a youth’s readiness to tackle other higher disciplines, points out the Stanford GSE researchers. In low-income families, books are not perceived as priorities, and many parents either do not read with their children or set an example by having a reading habit.
The challenges to promoting reading readiness is exacerbated by the pandemic, with lost livelihood and reduced income banishing books from the family budget.
Schools present many opportunities to develop reading fluency through class exercises, assignments, and library resources.
The gradual reopening of schools for FTF classes should offer hope to students, parents, and educators. It may take time for learning gaps to be closed, but the opportunities are there for closing learning discrepancies created by school shutdowns and remote learning.