Answer:
hi po
Explanation:
The Department of Education (DepEd) announced early this week that it would extend the school year to July 10 to enable teachers to conduct "intervention and remediation activities on March 1-12 "to address learning gaps and give them additional time for the different learning modalities. They would attend on March 15-19 a professional development program organized by the school or other DepEd unit
Last Wednesday, however, the department withdrew the plan following objections to shorten the sunumer vacation to only two weeks We hope, however, that the DepEd will continue with its plan to address the learning gaps "that have been attributed to the cancellation of face-to-face classes and substantial loss of live student contact with teachers
Face-to-face classes were replaced by a system of distance learning last year to avoid personal contact among
teachers and students that could provide an opportunity for the COVID-19 virus to spread. The problem, however,
was that so many students did not have the needed equipment such as TV sets, smartphones, and laptops And many
areas of the country do not have internet service
This is a problem shared by the Philippines with many other countries, the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in the middle of the pandemic last August It disclosed the results of a study showing that some 463 million children around the world lacked the equipment for electronic access to benefit from distance learning programs In the Pacific and East Aus countries alone, the UNICEF said, some 80 million had this problem
This week the polling organization Social Weather Stabions (SWS) announced the results of a survey it
conducted among Filipino students The survey showed that only 58 percent had the devices needed for distance
learning Forty-two percent did not have them and so were unable to take part in the on-line classes during the
school year
This lack of proper equipment among many students is surely one of the learning gaps the DepEd has found after many months of the pandemic There is also the lack of internet service in many parts of the country, partly because there simply are no communication towers in some regions
There is also the fact that many students respond best to face-to-face communication with teachers. It has thus been proposed that our school rooms be expanded and reconfigured, so that students maintain a proper distance from one another at all times
Our schools have been forced to follow so many restrictions these past months because of the pandemic. With
the start of mass vaccinations, it may soon be possible to ease them so as to help so many students who suffered
from the restrictions, mostly from lack of expensive equipment
