The Philippine Academic Society for Climate and Disaster Resilience and the UP Resilience Institute held “Education Inequalities and Challenges in Times of Pandemic: Voices From Practice” last November 23 through Zoom and Facebook Live. The talk show discussed the perspectives of educators and learners and the discourse on the challenges and issues faced by various education stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Speakers of the talk show included a student, parent, teachers, and school administrators.
The speakers shared their experiences and responses to the difficulties they have during online and blended learning. From their experiences, online classes are more arduous than face-to face-classes. Learning became more difficult because classes are interrupted due to power outages, or lack of or slow internet connectivity. Sometimes images and information inside modules are also unclear or insufficient. As stated by one of the speakers, mental anguish is now a new normal in the face of learning.
As emphasized by the speakers, communication between decision-makers, implementers, educators, and learners is important, and school administrators should not look at the problems using a top-down approach. On the ground perspectives from students and teachers are crucial to come up with policies that are effective given the current situation in learning. It can also be noted that some of the challenges educators and learners face in the current mode of learning have already been existing before and were only exacerbated after the pandemic struck.
With all the narratives put together, there is a call for more fitting solutions to address the shortcomings of the current education system during the pandemic. As such, there is a need to reassess the current learning setup and recalibrate the education system to fit the needs of those directly affected.
For individuals who missed the talk show and are interested to watch the replay, recordings can be accessed through the PASCDR Facebook page and website.