THE MILITANT Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) yesterday stormed the Department of Education’s central office in Pasig City to present to the agency the seven ‘to-dos’ to ensure that the October 5 school opening will not be postponed again.

“Five months of failure to deliver education is too long a denial of the youth’s basic right. The government has no one to blame but its own neglect and ineptitude. Time is of essence, we have to ensure that class opening is well-prepared on October 5,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said.

The group urged DepEd to give a weekly report on the progress of preparations for the seven demands it presented.

Foremost is the need for sufficient funding, said Basilio, as this will ensure the provision of all other requisites. Earlier, the group slammed the meagre P4 billion allocation for DepEd’s ‘new normal’ in the bicam-approved Bayanihan II, leading ACT to push for a supplemental budget.

“Education is a perpetually essential service mandated from the state, especially at a time of deep crises. The President’s empty support to learning continuity won’t do, it needs to be concretized in the form of sufficient funding. With Secretary Briones claiming to be on the President’s good side, she is hereby challenged to secure needed resources ASAP,” Basilio said.

While face-to-face classes won’t start till 2021, ACT noted that teachers and staff are already reporting onsite. Hence, the group called on DepEd to institute preventive health measures and guarantee health protection and benefits for education workers.

“It’s no secret that public schools have poor facilities, so much that it makes our workplaces unsafe amid the pandemic. We can’t overstate the need to address these long overdue issues, such as having working sanitational facilities and clinics plus the hiring of at least one nurse per school and utility personnel, among others. Meanwhile, education front liners should be screened by a health worker and tested for Covid19 before physically reporting. Likewise, PPEs should be distributed among us, and in the likely event that any of us get infected, DepEd should fully shoulder the costs of treatment,” Basilio said.

He added that public school teachers must also be finally granted sick leave benefits.

Likewise, ACT demanded that DepEd recant its permission for LGUs to utilize 50 percent of NCR schools as isolation and quarantine facilities, citing this as a great hazard for reporting personnel.

One of the topmost issues with the August 24 opening is the unavailability of centralized modules, which DepEd dubbed as the ‘backbone’ of its remote learning plan. ACT previously reported on struggles on the ground to produce local modules in anticipation of the central office’s delayed provision of such.

“As the postponement brought  DepEd more time to produce these, we expect that by October 5, students will get one set of modules each,” Basilio said.

The group also reiterated its call for the national government to ensure the provision of needed laptops, gadgets, and a P1,500 internet allowance for all teachers and indigent learners.

Emphasizing education’s aim to equip the youth with knowledge and skills to understand the world and to be active contributors to the betterment of society, ACT said DepEd must devise a pass or fail grading system, as well as include pandemic education in this school year’s curriculum.

“Old evaluation systems is inapplicable to remote modalities and doesn’t ensure quality and relevant education amid the crisis. Instead of adding another burden to families, DepEd should adopt a more flexible system that measures students’ performance by how well lessons aided learners in adapting to the unusual situation we’re in and in actively participating in productive endeavors at home and in their communities. As such, the youth’s education shall be grounded on their realities and shall help them and the country surmount the health and economic crises confronting us,” Basilio explained.