By Manolo Serapio Jr.

A COVID-free town in Maguindanao province has launched a reading program outdoors, hoping to boost the competency of children even as the coronavirus pandemic kept schools across the Philippines closed for more than a year.

Zaddam Alim, head of the Tumbao Central Elementary School in Mangudadatu, came up with the idea after seeing the number of parents picking up learning modules for their children dwindle in January.

“The parents were complaining that their children were not learning anything from the modules,” says Alim’s sister Zarina Mae Alim, a kindergarten teacher. Many parents are unable to take on the teachers’ role at home since they themselves cannot read and write, says Zarina.

That gave birth to the Adopt-A-Purok reading program in the municipality where teachers tutor students from kindergarten to Grade 6 on how to read properly at least twice a week within their purok, or small community area.

The program started in Tumbao Central Elementary School in February and has now expanded to six schools, says Zarina. Up to 100 children from each purok, divided into smaller groups and complying with health protocols, participate in learning words, rhymes, tongue twisters and reading short stories in both English and Filipino, she says.

“This program is meant to motivate the children to learn in the midst of a pandemic,” said Zarina. The 26-year-old teaches phonetics and drawing to the kindergarten children.

Zaddam, the school principal, has challenged all 14 teachers who are part of the program to help increase the number of readers among the children.

Unlike the rest of the country where COVID-19 cases spiked again this month, Mangudadatu has been largely spared from the outbreak, with municipal officials recording only one confirmed case last year, said Zarina.

It takes a village

Since it takes a village to teach a child, barangay officials also help out by providing the learning space and chairs for the children. Barangay councilor Teng Tumindeg built a makeshift stand for the reading materials and some parents also provided some needed materials, said Zarina.

The reading materials are printed using photocopiers provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund, she says.

UNICEF, supported by the Government of Japan, works with Synergeia Foundation in improving the quality of basic education in Mangudadatu and other municipalities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Synergeia has been pushing its local government partners to hold limited in-person tutorials safely in their purok and other open areas to help students cope with remote learning. They are being implemented in other parts of Maguindanao as well as in Iloilo, Lanao del Sur and La Union provinces.

The tutorial sessions focused on reading because it’s a weak area for most grade school students in the municipality, says Zarina. But she said the teachers would soon mentor the students on other subject areas.

Through the reading program, the teachers in Mangudadatu are hoping to fill some of the learning gaps that the pandemic may have exacerbated.

Only 10% of Filipino Grade 5 pupils had achieved the reading literacy skills expected at the end of primary school, versus 82% in Vietnam and 58% in Malaysia, according to the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics done by UNICEF and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization.

“During this pandemic, the children are lucky if they have parents or an older sibling who can help them. Otherwise, they’d be left out,” says Zarina. “For a child to learn at this time, a teacher has to be innovative.”

By Manolo Serapio Jr.

A year since the Philippines shut schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children are grappling with remote learning, and with no clear path back towards some normalcy in education, they will continue to struggle.

With online access limited in many parts of the country, the majority of the 25 million students enrolled in the current school year use printed learning modules. Learning outside classrooms, however, is tough for many children and not all parents are able to help them out at home.

In the case of 15-year old Dyamia Cacatian from Vigan, Ilocos Sur and her brother Harley who have lost both parents years ago, they only have each other to turn to for help. While they are both honor students, she admits missing in-person classes where learning is more enduring.

With modular learning, “I feel like I’m just trying to chase deadlines,” says Dyamia.

Czarina Elape from Caloocan City says her two young sons also miss going to school. Currently, she is unable to take up a job offer from a relative because she cannot leave her children, who both have visual disability, at home. “I need to constantly be with them and help them with school work,” she says.

And some students are clearly having difficulties understanding lessons with the shift to remote learning.

In Valenzuela City, which uses both online and modular modes of learning, the average grade for the first quarter among Grade 8-10 learners ranges from 48% to 55% across different subjects, well below the passing rate of 75%, according to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, head of the Senate committee on basic education.

Learning loss

Since putting the main Luzon island and later, the entire country, in what would be one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, a year ago, the government has been slowly reopening the economy. But there have been no concrete plans to reopen schools.

A proposal by the Department of Education to reopen a limited number of schools for a trial run in January did not push through. A renewed surge in COVID-19 cases may delay further plans for now.

The Philippines, along with Myanmar and Bangladesh, are the only countries in Asia where schools have remained closed, according to Zurich-based independent educational foundation Insights for Education.

“There will definitely be regression,” says Lucia Lamanero, a school principal in Iloilo province. “If our students lagged behind those from other countries before, we have a bigger problem now.”

Fifteen-year old students from the Philippines ranked lowest among 79 countries in reading proficiency and second lowest in mathematics and science in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment.

Intervention via tutorials

Lamanero, a partner educator of Synergeia Foundation, decided to intervene and launched in-person tutorials to help out students learning remotely. Along with teachers and volunteers, she tutors groups of students in open areas while wearing masks and observing physical distancing.

“We just cannot sit idly in the school waiting for modules to be returned and checked,” she said. “We have to go out and see for ourselves how learners are doing in their homes.”

Synergeia, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Children’s Fund and Government of Japan, has been pushing its local government partners across the Philippines to hold in-person tutorials safely in places where online access is limited.

Apart from Iloilo, these mentoring sessions in purok or sitios – small community areas – are now being implemented in the provinces of Maguindanao, La Union and Lanao del Sur.

Nonetheless, distance education has spurred the development of independent learning as students explore ways to absorb lessons quickly instead of relying heavily on teachers, says Meliton Zurbano, the schools division superintendent in Valenzuela City.

But it has increased the gap between fast and slow learners, as seen in a tutorial program in Masiu, Lanao del Sur which uses videotaped materials created by teachers.

“It’s the fast learners who are really benefiting greatly while the slow learners are less interested,” says Nihayma Macasindil, public schools district supervisor in Masiu.

By Malio Aguilar

Rosemarie Cobre and Ferly Bones share a lot of things in common: both of them are mothers in their 50s, both of them have two children and both are high school graduates who have become pillars of education in their communities.

Cobre is the head of the Federation of the School Governing Councils in Bacnotan, La Union, an association involved in policy making in 17 elementary schools in the municipality.

Bones is the chairperson of a School Governing Council (SGC) in Batad, Iloilo who converted her home into a tutorial center for children who are having a tough time with remote learning.

SGCs help craft school improvement plans and they participate in formulating school policies and programs that benefit learners. Parents, barangay officials, teachers, non-government organizations and anybody who can devote time and self in improving the education of children can be part of SGCs.

As it works with more than 400 local governments across the Philippines to improve the quality of basic education, Synergeia Foundation holds workshops to guide SGCs, like those in Bacnotan and Batad, in preparing action plans including a budget and sustainability feature.

“All I want is that no child in Bacnotan would grow up ignorant,” said Cobre.

Born to a poor family, Cobre was unable to study beyond high school as she needed to work early being the eldest child in a brood of four. Little did she know that she would become so involved in the education of her own children.

She was president of the Parent-Teachers’ Association at Bacnotan Central School for many years before eventually heading the school’s SGC and later the municipality’s Federation of SGCs.

With the pandemic forcing children to learn remotely, she plans to start off an adult literacy program called the Barangay Literacy Coordinating Council to help unschooled parents assist their children at home.

“I realized I could help in the education of the children in our community even if I didn’t get to finish my own education and that poverty should not be a barrier,” says Cobre.

Tutorials at home

In Batad, 51-year old vegetable vendor Bones opened her home to 14 students in her neighborhood to help tutor them, along with some volunteer teachers, with their learning modules.

After participating in some seminars about distance education organized by the local government and Synergeia Foundation, Bones realized she needed to help out children who are left on their own devices at home because their parents are either working or unschooled.

“I told the parents not to worry because I will help their children with the modules,” she said. She tutors the Grade 2 and 3 students in the morning, followed by Grade 6 students in the afternoon and a mix of high school students in the evening.

Every now and then, she invites volunteer teachers to mentor the students and sometimes her own children help her out.

In a community where many youths marry young or skip school to work for their families, she keeps on reminding parents that education should be top priority for their children.

“I should know because my own parents wanted me to be a teacher, but I didn’t listen to them,” she admits. “Now, thanks to the pandemic, I’ve become a teacher of sorts to children who need some guidance.”

Rise in functioning SGCs

Functional and active SGCs are partly the reason why Bacnotan has been a three-time recipient of the annual Seal of Good Education Governance awarded by Synergeia and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

When USAID began its Education Governance Effectiveness program through Synergeia in 2013, only 1.6% or 29 out of 1,838 SGCs participated in planning, formulating and implementing school policies. Another 43.3% had no SGCs and 39.1% had non-functioning SGCs.

At the end of 2020, the number of schools with functioning and participatory SGCs had surged to 1,331.

Fully operating SGCs and a reading proficiency program helped Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya reduce its non-readers and frustrated readers by 63% in 2018-19.

In Vigan, Ilocos Sur, working SGCs helped cut the number of the city’s frustrated readers by nearly 35% and boosted its cohort survival rate to 99.5% during the same period.

Both Kayapa and Vigan were first-time recipients of the Seal in 2019. The next batch of Seal winners will be announced during the 14th Washington SyCip National Education Summit to be held virtually on March 25-26. It will be streamed live on Synergeia’s Facebook page.