US provides P4.8 billion educational aid to DepEd

By Ingrid Mendoza

---

The Department of Education (DepED) signed an assistance agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in which they would be given P4.8 billion for the improvement of the basic education sector on March 11.

It was a new five year-bilateral deal that would ‘mark a new era’ for the longstanding partnership in achieving quality education, Lawrence Hardy II, USAID Philippines director, said on March 11, as quoted by The Philippine Star.

The deal would pave the way for DepEd and USAID to deepen their commitment in helping children and out-of-school youth receive a much needed education and skills for success. It would offer programs to improve literacy rates, social skills, employment and life skills and strengthening of education governance.

“These programs will strengthen Philippine institutions to provide quality education. It also recognizes the important and unique contributions the private sector and civil society bring to partnerships in achieving better education results,” Hardy said according to the Philippine Star.

The agreement was part of four new assistance agreements made between the US government and the Philippines which launched in 2020 and 2021. It has an anticipated total value of P32.7 billion that would last for over five years.

Other agreements involved the Department of Health which sought to strengthen health systems and quality of health services.

It also included the acceleration of inclusive market-driven economic growth with the Department of Finance and increased information and communication technology access for the evolving digital economy.

An agreement with the National Economic and Development Authority was also made to promote the use of sustainable natural resources, expand renewable energy and reduce the risk when it came to natural disasters.

The US had continued to support the Philippines to achieve its development goals. Over the past years, they have aided a total of P228.8 billion.

DepED’s distance learning effectivity in the new normal

As the issue of the pandemic has yet to be resolved, classes have still been conducted in the online platform with no assurance of when face-to-face classes would start again.

A call for an ‘academic freeze’ or suspension of classes have been heard from different groups but has been rejected.

The number of enrollees for the academic year 2020-2021 was higher than expected, for it was able to accumulate 89.01 percent compared from last year.

Even with the number of enrollees, distance learning has yet to be proven effective. A survey was conducted by the Movement for Safe, Equitable, Quality and Relevant Education (SEQuRe Education Movement) in November to December 2020 to address the concerns regarding the ‘educational crisis’ during this pandemic.

The study garnered a total of 3,222 respondents: 1,395 teachers, 1,207 parents, and 620 students from grades 4-12.

The results showed that 70.9 percent of the teachers “do not think or are not confident that the competencies set by the Department of Education (DepEd) under distance learning are actually being developed,” as quoted by ABS-CBN news.

Over half of students were uncertain if they could learn through the distance learning program developed by DepED while 42.7 percent of parents expressed confidence that children were able to understand what was being taught.

Head of SEQuRe’s research team, Liza Marie Campoamor-Olegrio, emphasized that integration of the tasks in the student’s daily lives must be implemented. Most performance-based tasks should be given and the ‘traditional way’ of giving modules was too simple.

In the survey, four in every 10 students responded that they have found errors in the modules. Nine in every 10 students communicated modular distance learning through Facebook Messenger but 57.4 percent expressed that lack of connection with the teachers was the main problem. 0.8 percent students have visited DepED’s learning support aides while 25 percent have no adult guidance when it came to their lessons.

As for the teacher respondents, only 4 percent believed that students were able to keep up with lessons, 54 percent said that there was a definite portion that was left behind while 42 percent said an indefinite segment could not keep up.

71 to 72 percent of students and parents said that they could not attend classes “due to problems with gadgets, internet connection, and distance learning expenses.”

Majority of the students, 87 percent, responded that unstable internet connections were the "main problem" of online class.

The survey did not only discuss the effectiveness of learning, but also whether or not there were negative impacts to physical and mental health, in which 54.7 percent said that there was.

Almost half, 46.7 percent, of teachers believed that DepED has not ‘adequately ensured their safety and health protection but 33.5 percent answered otherwise.

Roman Romulo, Pasig Representative, stated that DepED should make adjustments on how to address the problems in distance learning, in which the number of learning competencies should not be reduced but instead focus on what students need to learn at this time.

DepED had made revisions in the education curriculum where the number of learning competencies was reduced to 5,689 from 14,171.