At the age of 9 years old, Gian Bolina is already certain that he wants to become a teacher. “Para marami akong maturuan,” he said, resolved with the dream that he aims to pursue in the future.

His mother, Ma. Clarissa Mora, shared that since Gian learned how to read and write in second grade, he would take his time to teach his peers in their community at Pook Aguinaldo, Quezon City. Mora said that even though Gian and his friends are now already in the third grade of elementary school, a lot of his classmates still encounter difficulties in reading and writing.

Gian’s classmates are among the many children who have suffered from educational setbacks and loss of knowledge due to school closures. Grade 3 students like them should already have the ability to read and understand texts, but nine in every 10 students in their late primary years still can’t read or comprehend a simple story, according to a report by the World Bank released this year. This figure is the highest among all the countries in Asia, making Philippines fare at the bottom of the list.

As learning loss worsens more than two years after the implementation of distance learning, children now brace for the long-term individual, social, and economic repercussions that pose a crucial threat to their development and consequently, the country’s.

Missed Opportunities

The shift to remote learning due to the pandemic caused the dire educational situation to plummet even further, robbing children of the knowledge and competencies expected of their age.

In the first months of the implementation of remote classes, Gian’s enthusiasm for learning was depleted. Mora recounted that Gian even told her he was going to stop attending school for a while.

“Masakit na hihinto siya, halos mangiyak-ngiyak ako. Eh wala naman tayong magagawa kasi wala nang eskwelahan,” Mora said. Gian lamented not being able to learn anything from solely relying on the Department of Education's (DepEd) self-learning modules. He also had a hard time coping due to the lack of interaction with his classmates and teachers. It was only thanks to Gian's aunt who helped him with his lessons that he was able to continue his education.

Under the remote setup, parents are expected to facilitate their children’s learning by addressing what they could not understand from their materials and the short duration of online classes. But not all children have adults around them who can help them. The majority of local teachers who participated in the global survey of T4, a worldwide community of educators, schools, and education advocates, answered that students who were not guided by parents suffered learning loss.

Grace Gundayao, also residing at Pook Aguinaldo and a mother of 11 children of whom two are still in elementary school, struggled to answer the questions that her children were asking about their modules. “Sa modular, di ko maintindihan, lalo na sa math,” Gundayao said.

In a survey conducted by the Movement for Safe, Equitable, Quality and Relevant Education, 53 percent of the students who responded do not believe that they can learn the DepEd-mandated competencies for their grade level through distance learning.

“Dahil wala naman silang natutuhan, banggit nga ng mga bata rito, nagpapasa na lang sila dahil required. Hirap silang magbasa, hindi rin sila marunong sa usapin ng matematika, sa pagbabasa, at sa pagsusulat,” shared Norielyn Lariosa, the Program Coordinator of Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concern, an alliance of organizations who advocate for children's rights.

According to a study that evaluated the long-term learning deficits resulting from the short-term shock of school closures, children could lose more than a full year's worth of learning from a three-month school closure if there is no mitigation through remediation paired with a long-term curriculum reorientation.

For example, third-grade pupils today will lose up to 1.5 years’ worth of knowledge by the time they are in Grade 10. And only 2 percent of the current Grade 3 pupils will meet the Sustainable Development Goal of having a minimal level of math competency by Grade 10. Following this, students who are still enrolled in school will make no academic progress because 72 percent of them can no longer engage with the material of their subjects due to being out of curriculum and instruction range.

A Persistent Cycle

At this rate of magnified learning loss, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) expressed fears regarding its implications on national development. ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio remarked that the Philippines’s already dwindling economy will be the hardest hit by this crisis because a generation of learners without enough competencies will be produced in the long run.

Mora feared that had Gian failed to push through with his study, jobs in the future would have been elusive, crushing his dream of becoming a teacher.

According to the Asian Development Bank, every student in developing Asia who is affected by a school closure stands to lose roughly P10,300 yearly. As a result, the cycle of impoverishment persists: As poverty plays an integral role in driving the youth out of schools, being out of school would then result in children being bereft of the future opportunities needed to rise from this disposition.

Basilio also pointed out the hindrances to democratic participation that this continuity of loss will entail. In an attempt to remedy learning poverty, much of the focus will be funneled toward the parameters considered in international ranking such as science, English, and math, pushing the social sciences and humanities further at the margins.

“Matatanggalan na naman ng espasyo ang pag-aaral ng kasaysayan, ng ating lipunan, at magpo-focus sa robotic na style ng kabataan which is what they’re doing right now,” Basilio said, emphasizing the necessity of these subjects in establishing national identity, a precondition for critical participation in societal affairs and governance.

At this point, children would not only be deprived of the opportunity in the future to access the means to alleviate their poverty, but also the capacity to interrogate the political and economic structures that brought them to that position in the first place.

Addressing the Gaps

Funding is pivotal in resolving the educational crisis, said Basilio. He stressed that the government must abide by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s prescription that at least 6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product must be allocated to the education sector.

“Maglaan ng pondo para maipatupad ang ligtas na balik-eskwela at siguraduhin ang kaligtasan ng mga mag-aaral, mga guro, at personnel ng mga mag-aaral,” Lariosa said. This is also one of Salinlahi’s recommendations to the government.

Another step that ACT focuses on is the overhauling of the existing curriculum. Basilio criticized the congested character of K-12 that pushes the students to learn many things but not to develop mastery.  K-12's spiral progression approach, which ACT dubbed "chopsuey," drives teachers to repeat and review lessons that should have already been taught to students in the past before they can proceed to new topics. This corresponds to evidence illustrating that many developing countries' curricula are overly ambitious, encompassing a wide range of subjects with insufficient time allotted for each topic.

The bleak future that comes with the learning crisis can still be allayed as long as the government commits itself to taking urgent action by heeding people’s calls for a systemic improvement of the educational sector.

Children’s realization of their dreams requires spaces that are conducive to their growth, devoid of the perennial problems that now hamper their education. As Gian persists in his pursuit of becoming a teacher, the gaps in learning he and his class have must be filled, else we lose an entire generation of possible educators, doctors, engineers, and many more. ●