EDUCATION Secretary Leonor M.  Briones stressed the need for equity and the cooperation of concerned sectors in bringing distance learning to students during the 9th APEC Conference on Cooperation in Higher Education in Asia-Pacific.

With the changing landscape in the education sector because of the pandemic, Briones said that local government units helped the Department of Education in addressing challenges and securing the needs of learners. However, she added that the education sector faced the problem of equity because not all areas have the same amount of resources.

“We really need a digital cooperation strategy to ensure high quality and also enrich equity of education. We, in the Philippines and SEAMEO for example, we are very concerned about equity issues.Equity is the most urgent and the most important,” the DepEd chief said.

At the APEC conference, Briones discussed “Cooperative Solutions for Global Education and Sustainability”.

“The challenge is to develop general ability to learn knowledge and skill for solving real-world problems and challenges,” she said.

She pointed out that the Philippines has been part of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization’s discussions on the responses of different countries to continue education through numerous webinars.

The DepEd chief shared that before the pandemic, the Philippines formed an Education Futures Unit, with initiatives from different parts of the world being incorporated into the plan.

“We are all aware that most of us, if not all of us, have been moving into the direction of future education even without Covid19. In 2015, for example, OECD already launched the Futures of Education and Skills 2030 project,” she said.

Briones said that different countries developed remote education policies to address the unprecedented challenges in Information and Communications Technology due to the shift from face-to-face to remote learning.

The virtual conference had the theme “The New Era of Digital Education: Multilateral Approach and Challenges for APEC”.