Opinion > Columns
Post-Covid education

IN November 2021, the Philippines was one of the few countries in the world whose educational institutions remained closed due to Covid-19. The Philippines shared this position with Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Cuba and Belize.

In the same month, a report on education by the World Bank (WB) stated that distance schooling only covered 20 percent of children in the Philippines. In fact, only 26.9 percent of students have broadband access. But even for the ones who had access, online learning has been a heavy burden, especially for children ages 12 and below whose capacity to stay focused on the screen and on the teaching of the professor for hours is limited. This has been somehow softened by the synchronous/asynchronous model, adopted by many schools and universities. Still, teaching and learning is a communicative and cooperative process in which the remote version imposed by Covid has been proven to be insufficient.