‘In the face of these scientific data, the education department can only say that it acknowledges the problem which had been in existence years before and is doing something about it.’
THE World Bank has introduced a new term that will strike a chord in the minds of government leaders worldwide, especially in the Philippines.
“Learning poverty” is the international lender’s word to describe the dearth of knowledge and skills among children in many developing countries. We know for a fact that the quality of basic education in the Philippines is declining, but it still jolted many of us when the WB reported recently that the country has reached 90 percent learning poverty in 2021.
In its report, “Remote Learning During COVID-19: Lessons from Today, Principles for Tomorrow,” the World Bank noted that remote learning take-up in the country was at the lowest rate of 20 percent covered, alongside Ethiopia which also has a learning poverty rate of 90 percent.
Specifically, the bank defines “learning poverty” as the percentage of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple story – in other words, those who are below a “minimum proficiency” threshold for reading.
In its study, it was established that in April 2020, about 1.6 billion K-12 learners in over 190 countries were deprived of in-person schooling. It noted that 14 countries have fully closed schools while another 50 countries opened school gates partially. “Evidence suggests that remote learning did not produce as much learning as in-person schooling prior to the pandemic,” it said.
Locally, the Department of Education (DepEd) started the pilot in-person schooling in select schools in regions with low risk of COVID-19 infection only in the middle of November.
In the face of these scientific data, the education department can only say that it acknowledges the problem which had been in existence years before and is doing something about it.
We need something more concrete than this assurance, and both the Executive and the Legislative branches of government should tackle the education problem head-on. Or is the DepEd management suffering from some sort of lethargy, knowing that it will soon be replaced by another administration?
