Today marks the official resumption of face-to-face classes after more than two years of online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For teachers, face-to-face classes will provide them with more opportunities for increased interaction with their students that online learning simply could not match. Teachers can also closely interact with other teachers and enhance or improve their teaching skills.
For students, face-to-face classes will not only give them the chance to ask their teachers more questions or clarification on concepts they don’t readily understand.
Besides, they can also re-connect with other students and make new friends in school and perhaps share learning experiences with others to give them new perspectives they can find useful later on.
At the same time, it is true that the resumption of face-to-face classes could lead to a surge in COVID-19 cases in large school populations.
That’s why schools should strictly enforce policies on mandatory wearing of face masks and social distancing at all times, until health authorities declare COVID-19 no longer a pandemic but an epidemic that can be addressed by the scientific and the medical communities in due time.
But the return to face-to-face classes is only the first hurdle that should be overcome by the DepEd to bring the Philippine educational system back on track amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s not just COVID-19 that the government should address with the resumption of face-to-face classes.
The DepEd, now headed by Vice President Sara Duterte, has ample opportunity to reform the educational system to make it more responsive to current needs.
In fact, if we’re to believe a recent World Bank report, Philippine education is in serious crisis.
One in every four Grade 5 students does not have the reading and mathematics skills for Grade 2 or 3, and four in every five 15-year-old students do not understand basic mathematical concepts such as fractions and decimals that should be mastered by fifth graders.
The sad state of education in the Philippines described by the World Bank is based on three different multicountry assessments.
The Philippines took part in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for the first time in 2018, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2019 after a break of 16 years, and the first cycle of the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) in 2019.
PISA assessed achievement and application of key knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, and science.
TIMSS gauged proficiency in mathematics and science at the fourth and eighth grades, while SEA-PLM evaluated reading, writing, and mathematical literacy, with an initial focus on Grade 5.
Across the three assessments, poor learning results were observed among Filipino students, with more than 80 percent of them falling below minimum levels of proficiency expected for the respective grades.
We were last in reading and second to last in science and mathematics among 79 countries in PISA.
In TIMSS, we ranked last in both mathematics and science among 58 countries in the fourth-grade assessment.
In SEA-PLM, we were among the bottom half of the six countries in reading, mathematics, and writing literacy.
The World Bank also noted students’ poor health and nutrition conditions that could have likely hindered their readiness and ability to learn.
“There is a crisis in education – which started pre-COVID-19, but made worse by COVID-19,” the World Bank said, as “more than 80 percent of children do not know what they should know” in school.
If that’s the case, what does DepEd intend to do about it in the next six years?
