Senate inquiry on impact of school closures during pandemic sought

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian is seeking a legislative inquiry on the impact of school closures due to COVID-19 pandemic to identify mechanisms for the recovery of the basic education sector.

The lawmaker, who is set to retain his chairmanship of the Senate basic education committee, filed proposed Resolution 11 to address the gaps, issues, and challenges in the implementation of the programs of the Department of Education and craft complementary legislation.

In his resolution, Gatchalian noted DepEd’s initiatives to combat the ill-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the basic education sector, such as the DepEd Commons or the online platform where resources and learning materials are being shared, discovered, and reviewed for the benefit of teachers and learners.

“Notwithstanding the programs of the DepEd to try to curb the impact of the pandemic on the school systems, the basic education sector is faced with problems which are either exacerbated or brought about by the pandemic,” he said in his resolution.

He said these problems include massive learning and long-term economic losses due to school closures that further exacerbates the poor performance of the students during the pre-pandemic period, growing evidence internationally that points to the ineffectiveness of remote learning in facilitating effective learning and mitigating further learning loss, and negative impact of school closures on learners’ socio-emotional and mental health.

Gatchalian cited a joint report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank on the state of global education crisis which showed that 90.5% pre-pandemic learning poverty in the country could increase by as much as 10 percentage points because of COVID-induced school closures.

According to the report, learning poverty refers to the share of children aged 10 who cannot read or understand a simple story.

Further, Gatchalian also emphasized in the resolution the National Economic and Development Authority’s study that a year of closures is equivalent to P10.7 trillion in long-term productivity and income losses over the span of 40 years.

“The continuous disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic to education can continuously lead to learners suffering from severe consequences such as losing basic numeracy and literacy skills, deteriorating mental health, lacking access to regular source of nutrition, and making them vulnerable to abuse,” he stated in his resolution.

In July, DepEd announced that School Year 2022-2023 will start on August 22 and will end on July 7, 2023.

DepEd said schools will only be allowed to hold blended learning schedules and full-distance learning until October 31, 2022.

Starting November 2, all public and private schools should have transitioned to five days of in-person classes.—AOL, GMA News