PRESIDENT Marcos on Tuesday said blended learning, which includes teaching through an online platform, will continue in select areas in the country where full face-to-face classes will be difficult to implement by November.
The President made the announcement during the Cabinet meeting amid a Department of Education (DepEd) order to do away with blended learning beyond October 31 this year and to resume five-day face-to-face classes in all elementary and secondary schools nationwide.
Marcos also directed the DepEd and other concerned agencies to prepare for the resumption of full in-person classes in November, including preparing possible solutions to problems that may arise such as the availability of teachers and classrooms.
“We should identify areas where blended learning will be implemented so we can focus.
Prepare the devices and items they need and the supplies that the kids did not get during the pandemic. We continue with blended learning in very specific places only. As much as possible, it should be face-to-face,” he said.
The President also asked Vice President and concurrent DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte about the department’s plans to address several challenges, such as the availability of classrooms and teachers, availability of stable internet connection, and other concerns.
He also ordered the rebuilding and repairing of school buildings destroyed by Typhoon Odette last year.
Duterte told the President that DepEd will prepare a plan on what to do beyond October 31.
She also said majority of respondents favored in-person classes for the country’s students.
Duterte last week issued an order that face-to-face classes will resume five days a week in all schools nationwide in November, prompting several private schools to appeal that hybrid learning or a combination of online and face-to-face classes be allowed instead.
Duterte said the DepEd remains committed to holding all classes in in-person mode in November despite calls for blended learning as a precaution against the possible resurgence of COVID-19 cases.
Duterte said during the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, she asked President Marcos about the “possibility of the institutionalization of a blended learning mode of instruction and should the DepEd prepare for it.
“The President agreed that a plan should be made on blended learning mode with a caveat that face-to-face classes shall be the priority and blended modality shall be considered only in specific schools and areas with special circumstances,” she said in a statement.
“The requirement of the 5-day in-person classes by November 2, 2022 is still in effect,” she added.
The DepEd stopped in-person classes in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with schools shifting to blended learning, which features the use of modules and online or virtual learning to deliver education to students.
The DepEd allowed the gradual resumption of face-to-face classes in late 2021.
English and Filipino should be used as the medium of instruction in schools as early as the kindergarten level, DepEd Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said yesterday.
Densing said he already suggested the matter to Duterte.
“I would want to say that we use the regular English and Filipino as medium of instruction and the mother tongue as an exception to the rule,” he said in an interview on ABS-CBN News channel.
Densing said under the K to 12 law, the mother tongue should be used as the medium of instruction from kindergarten until Grade 3. But he questioned the effectiveness of using Filipino as a medium of instruction up to Grade 3.
“But being practical about it, if this has been effective, then why have we failed in the PISA evaluation?” he added, referring to the Programme for International Student Assessment.
The PISA report before the COVID-19 pandemic started said that Filipino students fared badly compared to their counterparts from 79 other countries in reading comprehension.
Filipino students also scored second-lowest in both mathematical and scientific literacy.
He said in urban areas, especially in highly-urbanized cities, English and Filipino should be used as media of instruction.
“We can use the mother tongue only as the exception, in case the people in the area are really not introduced to English and Filipino,” he added.
Densing, though, acknowledged that such a move would need legislation to amend the K to 12 law.
