THE Department of Education has laid down measures that aim to ease the pressure of distance learning on students and teachers by allowing more flexibility in teaching and learning.

The measures were contained in a memorandum issued by Education Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio.

These include granting time extensions for the completion and submission of activities by the learners and expanding mental health and socio-emotional well-being support to teachers, learners, and parents through group wellness sessions.

Teachers and learning support aides will also provide additional support to households that find it difficult to accomplish Self-Learning Modules or Learning Activity Sheets.

To allow teachers to focus on their instructional management tasks, they will no longer be burdened with the printing and distribution of modules.

“The welfare of our teachers and learners remains to be our priority and we will ensure that the school year 2020-2021 will be bearable for all while still promoting effective learning engagement,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said.

he other measures include allowing schools to determine activities that may be declared as optional. Meanwhile, additional enrichment activities can be offered to fast learners.

“The measures suggested are expected to enable the learners and learning facilitators to navigate through the challenges of the new normal in the teaching and learning process and make necessary adjustments throughout the school year,” San Antonio said.

For the succeeding quarters, learning tasks in the SLMs may be streamlined to ensure that activities sufficiently develop learning competencies leading to mastery.

“The need to adjust the assigned tasks for the learners is anchored on the fact that learners have long been disengaged from academic learning since the onset of the pandemic last March 2020,” San Antonio explained.

He added that regional and Schools Division Offices are authorized to implement other ‘academic ease’ measures.

Other stakeholders and partners can also be tapped to provide materials, equipment, and mechanism to help address challenges in distance and home-based learning.