GROUP 1 – BSN-II

 Belarga, Czarina Dawn

 Labto, Justine Bernadeth
 Matibag, Micah Kiel Sherinne
 Moldez, Marielle
 Serquina, Johniza Hope

The education system of the Philippines has been highly influenced by the country’s colonial
history.  That history has included periods of Spanish, American and Japanese rule and occupation.   The
most important and lasting contributions came during America’s occupation of the country, which began
in 1898.  It was during that period that English was introduced as the primary language of instruction
and a system of public education was first established—a system modeled after the United States school
system and administered by the newly established Department of Instruction. Like the United States,
the Philippine nation has an extensive and highly inclusive system of education, including higher
education.  In the present day, the United States continues to influence the Philippines education
system, as many of the country’s teachers and professors have earned advanced degrees from United
States universities.
Although the Philippine system of education has long served as a model for other Southeast Asian
countries, in recent years that system has deteriorated. This is especially true in the more remote and
poverty-stricken regions of the country.  While Manila, the capital and largest city in the Philippines,
boasts a primary school completion rate of nearly 100 percent, other areas of the country, including
Mindanao and Eastern Visayas, have a primary school completion rate of only 30 percent or less.  Not
surprisingly, students who hail from Philippine urban areas tend to score much higher in subjects such as
mathematics and science than students in the more rural areas of the country.

Education in the Philippines is offered through formal and non-formal systems.  Formal
education typically spans 14 years and is structured in a 6+4+4 system:  6 years of primary school
education, 4 years of secondary school education, and 4 years of higher education, leading to a
bachelor’s degree.  This is one of the shortest terms of formal education in the world. In the Philippines,
the academic school year begins in June and concludes in March, a period that covers a total of 40
weeks.  All higher education institutions operate on a semester system—fall semester, winter semester
and an optional summer term.  Schooling is compulsory for 6 years, beginning at age 7 and culminating
at age 12.  These 6 years represent a child’s primary school education.

The year 2020 is plagued with unprecedented problems that challenged the current global and
national socio-political and economic landscape. In the time of COVID-19 pandemic, the global
education system is in the process of transforming and adapting to new and challenging situations which
test the conventional learning process of human interaction inside a classroom, and capitalize in virtual
and online education through the help of technology. This paper tries to elucidate how the higher
education system of the Philippines coped with the challenge of providing adequate and quality
education services in the time of COVID-19. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease
caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience
mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.   Older people, and
those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory
disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily
through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, so it’s
important that you also practice respiratory etiquette (for example, by coughing into a flexed elbow).

The best way to prevent and slow down transmission is be well informed about the COVID-19
virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing
your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face.  At this time, there are
no specific vaccines or treatments for COVID-19. However, there are many ongoing clinical trials
evaluating potential treatments.
 On March 18, 2020, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimated that 107
countries had implemented national school closures related to COVID-19, affecting 862 million children
and young people, roughly half the global student population. This situation had rapidly escalated from
29 countries with national school closures a week before.

School closures are based on evidence and assumptions from influenza outbreaks that they
reduce social contacts between students and therefore interrupt the transmission.

One way that school closures are effective during outbreaks might be through forcing parents to
work at home and thus reducing work-related contacts. However, reviews have also noted the adverse
effects of school closure, including economic harms to working parents, health-care workers, and other
key workers being forced from work to childcare, and to society due to loss of parental productivity,
transmission from children to vulnerable grandparents, loss of education, harms to child welfare
particularly among the most vulnerable pupils, and nutritional problems especially to children for whom
free school meals are an important source of nutrition.

The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis. Many countries have (rightly)
decided to close schools, colleges and universities. The crisis crystallises the dilemma policymakers are
facing between closing schools (reducing contact and saving lives) and keeping them open (allowing
workers to work and maintaining the economy). The severe short-term disruption is felt by many
families around the world: home schooling is not only a massive shock to parents’ productivity, but also
to children’s social life and learning. Teaching is moving online, on an untested and unprecedented
scale. Student assessments are also moving online, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for
everyone. Many assessments have simply been cancelled. Importantly, these interruptions will not just
be a short-term issue, but can also have long-term consequences for the affected cohorts and are likely
to increase inequality.  

Going to school is the best public policy tool available to raise skills. While school time can be
fun and can raise social skills and social awareness, from an economic point of view the primary point of
being in school is that it increases a child’s ability. Perhaps to the disappointment of some, children have
not generally been sent home to play. The idea is that they continue their education at home, in the
hope of not missing out too much. 

Families are central to education and are widely agreed to provide major inputs into a child’s
learning, as described by Bjorklund and Salvanes (2011). The current global-scale expansion in home
schooling might at first thought be seen quite positively, as likely to be effective. But typically, this role is
seen as a complement to the input from school. Parents supplement a child’s math learning by
practicing counting or highlighting simple math problems in everyday life; or they illuminate history
lessons with trips to important monuments or museums. Being the prime driver of learning, even in
conjunction with online materials, is a different question; and while many parents round the world do
successfully school their children at home, this seems unlikely to generalize over the whole population. 

The closure of schools, colleges and universities not only interrupts the teaching for students
around the world; the closure also coincides with a key assessment period and many exams have been
postponed or cancelled. School facilities are a collection of buildings used to provide educational
programs for students. These facilities provide students or pupils with a place to learn that is under the
direction of teachers. Homeschooling or home based learning is the education of children at home.

Poor facilities in public schools signify that students are not receiving their rights of having a
sufficiently available and well-maintained school facilities. Indications of having these poor facilities are
non-working or poorly maintained public comfort rooms, lack of classrooms, overcrowding in
classrooms, poor ventilation, unsanitary and crowded canteens and more. While the (DepEd’s) online
learning, virtual classes and hybrid classes are admirable for the continuous learning of the students, the
reality is a majority of our population does not have access to internet. The internet in the country
remains the most expensive yet the slowest among Asian countries. I do not see how virtual classes
being proposed by the DepEd can be effectively implemented across all sectors. The poor will be at a
disadvantage here.