The COVID-19 pandemic should serve as a lesson learned to the Philippine education sector. It unraveled the many inequalities that worsened with the lockdown of educational institutions and abrupt transition to various modalities of distance learning. These happend at the expense of young people’s equal access to quality education.
As we transition back to face-to-face classes, it is imperative to be aware of the standards and entitlements of education stakeholders. This section highlights the standards of learning continuity and face-to-face classes.
Learning Continuity Processes
Education must not merely continue as usual after the two-year pandemic set-up. It must improve and safeguard the quality of learning for students, and ensure that appropriate mechanisms to address perennial and emerging concerns in the sector are well-placed.
Face-to-face Classes Protocols
The pandemic experience must shape the new education system set-up. Education governance must seriously take into consideration the challenges it faced during the pandemic, and the perennial concerns in education as it transition back to face-to-face classes.
Students Entitlements from Education Governance
The welfare and rights of the students must be secured whether there is a disaster or not. Quality education can only be achieved when its primary stakeholders, students, are empowered and protected. These rights and entitlements are not only in protection of the students, but are also means to ensure that learning in schools is holistic. It is both protective and enabling.
Teachers Entitlements from Education Governance
The COVID-19 disaster underscored that challenges in the education sector severely affects the teachers as well, which means the learning experience of the students is also compromised. The pandemic increased the risks for all education stakeholders, including the teachers, which calls for more measures to ensure such risks are mitigated.
Parents Entitlements
The need for a multi-sectoral approach in education has been emphasized during the pandemic. Students were left with modular lessons with only their parents to assist and support them physically from academic to psychological and emotional needs. As an equally important education stakeholder, education governance must also invest in the protection and empowerment of parents.