After the Department of Education (DepEd) announced that the start of SY 2020-2021 will be on August 24, 2020, a lot of parents express their worries about the safety of their children. But teachers are also confused and worried.
Secretary General Raymond Basilio of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said that many teachers remain confused about what the Education Department is planning for the school year, especially because many of them face the same problems as parents and students: they don’t have a stable, reliable internet connection! Many don’t have their own laptops or computers at home, too.
ACT is comprised of 200,000 teaching and non-teaching personnel – and many of them wish that the DepEd officials would also hold consultations with teachers’ groups before coming up with plans for the next school year.
Secretary General Raymond Basilio; Photo credit: KODAO
“Yong nire-request po natin sa Department of Education, i-involve ‘yong teachers dito sa pagbuo ng plano. Konsultahin, tanungin ‘yong mga guro [kung] paano mabubuksan ‘yong pasukan,” said Basilio.
“Upuan na natin, magsimula na tayong mag-usap upang makita natin kung saan tayo papunta by August. Ano bang mangyayari? Ano bang gagawin? Ang daming tanong ngayon sa hanay ng teachers.”
If the DepEd will push online education, many teachers worry that they don’t have the capacity to do it because of their limited resources. At the same time, they also worry about their students who face the same dilemma.
Photo credit: Manila Bulletin
But if the DepEd will also go with face-to-face learning or a hybrid of online and face-to-face learning, teachers also worry about their safety as well as the safety of their students, especially because there are still a lot of active cases of COVID-19 in the country.
The DepEd also announced that teachers are supposed to report to school on June 1 to prepare for the upcoming school year.
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