INTRODUCTION

Rationale of the Study

The world has been taking progressive directions and massive

developments economically, scientifically, technologically, culturally and socially;

along with it is the continuous improvement of all the countries educational

systems, as education is a powerful tool to build quality manpower that serves as

the best form of a country’s resources. However, everything has been placed to a

halt when a certain form of virus has invaded all the countries in the world and

threatened human lives. With this unprecedented pandemic, global landscapes

have changed and therefore forced the humanity to adjust and blend with until it

will be finally gone, or else, occurrence of devastating effects will haunt all

nations.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted all

levels of education worldwide, and the Philippines is no exception. In mid-March,

the Philippine government placed its largest island Luzon and other major cities

under lockdown, ordering the suspension of classes in all levels. Halfway into the

second semester, the majority of the country educational institutions had to stop

all face-to-face learning activities and abruptly transition to various forms of

remote or online learning (Mahlangu, V. P. 2018). In turn, it resulted in the

physical closure of all types of learning institutes. This has forced the educational

institutes worldwide, not just the Philippines, to resort to an “online only”

exclusivity model for the purpose of teaching and learning.

 The concept of online learning or e-learning is not new. Availability of

Internet access, together with the advances made in cloud technologies have

helped to promote the flexibility of the learning procedure and supplement it well

to the conventional learning methods (Wang, Lew, Lau, & Leow, 2019)

Since the COVID-19 scenario has brought forward an unprecedented

situation, where there has been a radical change in the mode of education

delivery where online synchronous or synchronous approach serves as the better

choices. Teachers have been compelled to deliver lectures online using some

form of an online delivery platform. However, based on DepEd survey March

2020, there are speculations that not all teachers and students are of equal

footing in terms of digital literacy, technological possession and resources. These

have led the educational institutions and the leading governmental agencies to

conduct a survey as regards to the students and teachers’ issues and challenges

if the new normal setting will be introduced where face-to-face classes stay as

not an option.

It was found out that the students of today are not equally equipped with

digital tools, equipments and internet connectivity especially the students in the

public schools. Middle-age teachers were also likewise identified to be poor

technically and arguably, almost 70 percent of the educators nationwide have

poor to low internet connection. This has led to decongestion of competencies

whereby the most essential learning competencies are just selected to

appropriately equip the students with what are vitally needed in a particular

subject. Formulation of different modalities of distance learning such as the

printed and digital modular methods is also introduced by the Department of

Education.

In June 2020, the basic and tertiary education looming opening of classes

of the new school year 2020 -2021 were still hampered as the COVID-19 virus

remained ravaging the societies. These had caused the Commission on Higher

Education (CHED) and Department of Education (DepEd) to just delay the start

of the upcoming school year: for tertiary level, it was open last September 2020;

and for kindergarten to senior high school – the schools commenced the classes

on October 5, 2020.

Though there were few who calls for postponement of the school year,

CHED chairman Prospero de Vera III stated that, “We are ready to open

[classes] this August. No ifs, no buts. Learning must continue. We learn as one,

we are ready.' While DepEd Secretary, Leonor Briones lamented that “We have

come out with a variety, with menu of options, online is not the only answer,

there’s a huge debate in the Philippines on how useful or whether it is really a

good way of teaching learners, so we have online, we have televisions, we have

radio. If all else fails, then learning modules are being printed so that these will

be delivered in various pick-up points or either parents or for the village officials

to distribute to the learners,” she said. Thus, the school year was pushed

through.

The Department of Education, Cebu City Division, thru Division a

Memorandum 80, s. 2020, has advised the teachers to let the students select
between printed and digital mode of distance learning to cater both the learners

who do not have the technological resources and those who have, with high

hopes that both will be educated equally though differently done. In Ramon

Duterte Memorial National High School, the teachers and administrators have

already begun the implementation of the printed and digital mode of distance

learning.

Given that these approaches are never done before, with respect to its

magnitude and resources needed; there were only few studies focusing to the

said modalities; and above all it is now implemented in the new normal as there

is no vaccine developed yet to COVID-19.

This study hopes to determine the extent of implementation of printed and

digital module modalities of distance learning and its possible enablers to carve

an action plan that will hopefully improve the implementation of the said

modalities this and the succeeding semesters, given that the new normal will still

be in place.

It is therefore the reason why this research is conceived of.