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Since the pandemic forced him to distance learning, 10-year-old Jhay Ar Calma has often had to climb onto the corrugated iron roof of his home in a slum in Manila to get an internet signal.
Up on the roof, he sits on a broken plastic container and waits for a strong enough signal for his government-issued device.
“Sometimes we switch the SIM card to a different provider so you don’t have to study on the roof, but there is rarely enough money for that,” Calma’s mother, Jonalyn Parulan, told Reuters.
Hopes for a return to classrooms this month have been dashed after President Rodrigo Duterte reversed a plan to test face-to-face classes in low-risk areas, postponing any reopening indefinitely as the Philippines battles more than 480,000 coronavirus infections, the second highest number in the southeast. Asia.
The shift to online classes, self-study modules, and radio and television programs has proven to be a major challenge in a country of 108 million where less than a fifth of households have access to the Internet and many lack mobile devices.
There has already been an increase in the number of students dropping out of school, according to the Ministry of Education.
Studying on a mountain, graveyard
In Laguna province, south of Manila, students climb a mountain to access the internet and have even built a cabin to provide shelter when it rains and to sleep when they work late into the night on their assignments.
This situation is a far cry from the college life that 19-year-old Rosemine Gonzaga had anticipated.
“I was very excited about college because all my life I have been here in the mountains,” Gonzaga said, explaining how the pandemic had thwarted her plans for an independent life in the city.
Like many students in his community, he is dependent on a scholarship and fears losing it if he cannot keep up with the lessons. Still, Gonzaga is determined to continue classes online rather than risk infection by attending college.
“The pandemic is not a reason for me to stop learning,” he said.
Mark Joseph Andal, 18, who lives in San Juan, Batangas province, has taken a part-time job in construction to buy a smartphone for virtual classes, and has also built a forest shelter to capture an internet signal.
When the signal wears off, Andal grabs his plastic chair to move to another location, and if it rains, he holds the phone in one hand and an umbrella in the other.
Andal says he has no other choice. “We are not rich, and finishing school is my only way to pay my parents to raise me.”
Andal admits he was relieved and scared when he heard that schools could reopen. Difficult circumstances have made him more determined to succeed.
“I want to be more active in class, I want to persevere more, improve despite the situation I am in,” he said.
Many families also struggle with home tutoring.
The charming 11-year-old Joy de Castro, who lives in a makeshift house in a Manila cemetery, sometimes studies while sitting on tombstones to avoid getting under her family’s feet cooking chicken to sell to visitors.
“I know we haven’t given her enough guidance at school,” said Castro’s grandmother, Angeline Delos Santos, “but if we didn’t take care of our business, we wouldn’t have anything to feed the children.”
“I just hope he finishes school, gets a good job and finally finds a life outside of this cemetery,” Santos said. –Reuters
