‘Sudden response’: the group of teachers remembers the pilot classes

MANILA – A group of teachers criticized Sunday’s president Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to cancel limited face-to-face classes, which were supposed to be tested in January, calling the measure a “knee-jerk reaction.”

In a public briefing on Saturday, Duterte announced that it was withdrawing its order to conduct a limited face-to-face class test in areas with low risk of COVID-19 transmission next month due to the discovery of a new strain of the coronavirus in the UK.

The decision shows that the Duterte administration is “in the dark” and “in limbo” in terms of handling the pandemic, ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio said in a statement.

“Hence their knee-jerk responses to slow down conducting face-to-face classes rather than employing a scientifically guided risk assessment of where and when physical classes can be conducted in light of the discovery of new strains,” he added.

Basilio said the risk of new strains of COVID-19 should not derail the initial steps for students to safely return to school.

“Instead, it should pressure the government to heed calls to ensure health and safety in schools, maintain non-transmission in remote areas, provide extensive technological infrastructure for remote learning, among others,” he said.

In an interview, Basilio said that it was important to resume face-to-face classes because the current distance learning setup is a failure.

“There are not enough modules yet, there are not adequate and affordable Internet services, and teachers do not have enough teaching tools,” he told ABS-CBN News.

(There are insufficient numbers of modules, we lack decent and affordable internet services, and teachers don’t have enough resources to teach.)

The Department of Education has said it would comply with Duterte’s order to suspend the limited face-to-face class drill.

Under the distance education system, students study from home through print and digital modules, online classes, television, and radio.

But some have cited challenges with distance learning, such as difficulty for students to study on their own and unreliable internet connectivity, among others.

Malacañang had said that Duterte approved of DepEd’s recommendation to test limited face-to-face classes because the executive director also thought that the implementation of distance education in the country was “far from ideal.”

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