We lose so much learning hours in this country, and not just from typhoons, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Many reasons are man-made, arising from poor appreciation of the importance of education in national progress.
And by education, I mean quality education. If free education is universal and mandatory from kindergarten, with free kiddie or preschool optional, free should not mean substandard.
This, unfortunately, is what we’re seeing in our free public education system.
Last week, a kiddie school operated by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in my part of town had no classes on Monday and Tuesday. There are conflicting statements from government agencies on whether this was to make way for disinfection due to the spread of flu-like illness, or for inspections for structural integrity following the powerful earthquakes in Cebu and Davao.
What was suspended was onsite learning; schools were ordered to shift to remote or asynchronous learning modes. But this is not possible for young children in kiddie school and kindergarten.
On Wednesday, classes remained suspended in the kiddie school, because the teachers were reportedly called to help respond to a fire that broke out in a public school in a neighboring barangay. Is fire response part of the job description of public school teachers?
Finally, on a still cloudy Thursday, classes resumed in the kiddie school. But on Friday, morning classes were again suspended, ostensibly because the teachers had to attend a meeting at city hall.
As parents expressed exasperation, it was announced that the morning classes would instead be held together with those in the afternoon. Some parents balked, saying it would conflict with their work schedules. So not all the pupils were able to attend the afternoon classes.
That’s three days of a five-day school week wasted due to avoidable circumstances.
Today and tomorrow, the parents have been told that classes will again be suspended because the teacher has to attend a seminar somewhere.
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If it were a private school that charges hefty tuition, parents would have threatened the administration with a lawsuit for not providing the service paid for.
But public schools run on people’s money, and all parents in state-run schools contribute to national coffers – through consumption taxes and the fees paid for various government services.
That DWSD-run kiddie school even charges for its feeding program, at P30 per meal for each student, with P10 reportedly going to the cook. Isn’t the school feeding program supposed to be free?
Last week’s three-day break (plus the two so far this week) came on the heels of the many class suspensions arising from bad weather and flooding.
After the prolonged lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, both public and private sectors developed protocols for quickly shifting to remote learning modes during contingencies.
This may look good in theory, to ensure continuity of formal education. But all studies on learning outcomes under these hybrid modes during the pandemic have come up with disappointing findings.
Those two years of school lockdowns and remote learning caused public school students to be four to five years behind in the literacy curriculum, according to the Second Congressional Commission on Education.
Remote learning might work for students with the means to have their own computers, who live in homes with strong WiFi and with a special space conducive to concentrating on school lessons.
As we saw during the pandemic, however, millions of students in our country can afford only low-end cell phones for use during remote classes. Siblings might be sharing phones. Their homes may not have internet. It may be a one-room dwelling, with flimsy walls dividing neighbors from each other.
Children can’t focus on fluctuating livestream images of their classes on their low-end cell phones while in the background they can hear wailing children, barking dogs, loud conversation, crowing cocks and maybe even karaoke.
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Maybe there aren’t too many of these underprivileged children in Laguna, where onsite classes have been suspended at all levels in both public and private schools for 17 days, from Oct. 14 to 31. For preschoolers who still can’t use gadgets, this means a 17-day vacation.
Laguna Gov. Sol Aragones said this was due to the “nag-aambang” or imminent threat of an earthquake following the powerful quakes in Cebu and Davao.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology quickly reminded everyone that there is still no science for predicting earthquakes.
This is why our education system needs stronger focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Aragones, a development communication graduate of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, must have skipped her STEM classes.
Perhaps the 17 days will allow for the inspection of schools for structural integrity. But what exactly can be done in 17 days, by way of checking for structural integrity, and how is the testing done? Are there enough skilled people to carry out the checks in all the schools?
If a school is found to be structurally unsound, will it be retrofitted? While the repairs or retrofitting are being done, will onsite classes remain suspended? And will the threat of the nag-aambang lindol pass after Oct. 31?
Not surprisingly, the UPLB immediately sought exemption from the bizarre order of the provincial government. UPLB buildings both old and new are pretty sturdy. Aragones has yet to respond to the request of her alma mater.
By the reckoning of most education experts, Philippine education has been in crisis for many years now. Yet our officials and political class have never been in crisis mode in addressing the problem. As we are seeing, they even engage in silly gimmickry.
This is because many political and family fortunes – almost always intertwined – are built on keeping the masses poor, undereducated and dependent on tax-funded dole-outs and lifelong patronage.
Public education is underfunded, lacking in manpower and everything else including water for handwashing, with overly large class sizes because money meant for school construction has been pocketed by thieves in government.
The physical and mental stunting of many of our younger generations is not just due to poverty and undernourishment. And the crisis can only get worse when classes are suspended because a government official says an earthquake is coming.