Catalino, Erica BVE III-11

Diotay, Andrea M. 2S-VE10

THE INACCESSIBLE “ACCESSIBLE EDUCATION”

Quality Education: The Digital Divide

CASE:

According to the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, Article XIV, Section 1,The State shall protect and
promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels, and shall take appropriate steps to make
such education accessible to all. However, there are a lot of children living on and near the mountains
who cannot access education due to inaccessible locations of schools. Their hardship was doubled as
they faced the battle in accessing education during distance learning due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Robert,
a 12 year-old Igorot boy, member of Kalanguya group of Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya is a grade 4 student who
crosses rivers and mountains just to get to his school during face-to-face classes. Now that distance
learning emerged, Robert’s struggle to learn also started as education shifted to online learning,
self-learning modules, and television and radio program learning. His family does not even have television
or radio and he does not have financial support to have his own gadget and internet connection for online
class. Robert is determined to finish his schooling so he still travels down the rivers and mountains to get
and to submit his self-learning modules. He was even featured in a news outlet and his story became an
inspiration to a lot of students struggling in distance learning. But the struggles of distance learning are
not going away from him as his parents cannot read and write so no one is helping him to get his modules
done. After three months of battling with distance learning, Robert was forced by his parents to drop out
of school because “there is no way” to access education during this time of crisis.

1. Considering Robert’s situation and condition, is he a victim of inaccessible education?

2. Is it Robert’s fault that he needs to drop out of school? If not, who’s at fault for him not being able to
access education.
3. What are the ethical approaches that should be considered in addressing the situation and condition of
Robert? How can these ethical approaches help in improving the country's education system?

POSITION PAPER

The inaccessible "Accessible Education"

Frustration — it is widely what the world gained on the advent of the 21st century. The entry of
the new millennium known as the Age of Information and of Digital Revolution made the larger number of
underdeveloped and developing countries in the world really ambitious. They ended up frustrated along
the way in trying to implement digital education parallel to the education of the first world countries. The
many confabulations on the booming trends of the 4th Industrial Revolution have remained irrelevant all
this time to the many countries in Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America because a creeping problem
remains unresolved for all these innovations and developments to become pertinent to their respective
cases — i.e., the perduring digital divide.

In the case of the Philippines, for instance, it is already 2021 yet a large part of the rural
population still do not own even the most basic kinds of modern technologies for comfortable living like a
stove, electric fan or even a fluorescent light. There are many underlying factors that may explain this
problem but big reasons include poverty and lack of government attention. With many people still having
no access to even the most basic kinds of home technologies, indeed there is a digital divide not only
among countries but even among regions in the Philippines. This is also why there is enough reason to
hold onto the critical belief that the sudden implementation of digital education in the Philippines is
blatantly absurd and totally irrelevant. Many students and even teachers, mostly in marginal areas, have
no appropriate devices nor access to the Internet to cope with the demands of digital education. The
ambition of implementing an education parallel to the digital education already achieved by developed
countries has led and is continually leading the education sector particularly its primary stakeholders —
the teachers, students and parents — to severe frustration, because while the country is still in serious
works in solving its problems on making more schools, improving roads for students' safe travel, and on
building better communication infrastructures yet there is already a movement trying to advance
education into ambitiously digital.

In this time of pandemic, the frustration brought about by the digital divide in education even got
worse than it was during the normal time. With schools being shut down and with no other means of
communicating long distance but through modern media, the access to education has become even
thinner and farther. Although the Department of Education (DepEd) has always been vocal in reiterating
the modular mode as alternative to those who cannot afford to access the benefits of modern technology,
essential factors like quality instruction and proper guidance are the ones being compromised in the said
mode. In other words, while education continues to happen, the quality education that the constitution
mandates and DepEd has promised to promote in their "Edukalidad" slogan is not the kind of education
being delivered straight to their homes by the modules. Only those who have access to modern media
like computers, cellphones, and the internet may have the chance to access the education with guided
pedagogy. In this manner, access to quality education is becoming more of a privilege rather than a right
as what the international community established.

Moreover, the romanticism of the concept of resilience, perseverance and creativity among
students and teachers living in most underprivileged and isolated communities in the provinces are also
not helpful in bringing quality education especially in this time of pandemic when everybody is financially
struggling and emotionally distraught.

Thus, it is suggestible that in planning and designing a new system for education especially in
times of crisis, the Education Department should contemplate and consider two important ethical
approaches. One is the fairness or justice approach and start asking ourselves: How fair is this decision?
Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination? This question is
always essential to ask whenever making a big decision particularly in the field of educational planning
because one imprudent decision may lead to the drastic pain of many people. A bad and unfair decision
will lead to breaking the slogan of “No Student Left Behind” and all campaigns for achieving equality in
education will all be useless. In considering digital education amidst the persistence of the digital divide, it
is important to ask: Will all students have equal opportunities to access the same quality of education?
Are the benefits of the internet the same with the benefits one can get from the module? If not, then there
is no fairness.

Another ethical approach to be considered in educational planning is the Common-Good

Approach. Ethicists Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre,Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer
explained this as an approach in “ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions, and
environments on which we depend are beneficial to all.” In designing a truly responsive educational
continuity plan, policymakers should also ask: Will this policy bring equal benefit and satisfaction to the
majority, if not to all, of students, teachers and parents? If not, then the policy is not promoting common
good and has the tendency to leave a stakeholder behind.

These are practical questions that policymakers and education leaders have to regularly ask
themselves in order that their plans will not bring frustrations to many people. There is no doubt about the
persistence of the digital divide. Digital divide will continue until the Philippines has not successfully leapt
from being a third world country. Yet, there is no reason to wallow with our shortcomings, the government
will only have to continue recalibrating its efforts in building more schools, improving roads for students'
safe travel, increasing teachers' incentives and in building better communication infrastructures, then
eventually the country will be ready to shift to digital education. Steps to digitization have to be gradual
and not ambitiously sudden. Also these have to be ethically prudent and not neglectful, because an
education system that does not consider the real life situations in the grassroots is a frustrated system.

References:

Lacuata, R. (2016). Igorot Boy Crosses 4 Mountains, 2 Rivers Just to Get to School. ABS-CBN News.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/06/24/16/igorot-boy-crosses-4-mountains-2-rivers-just-to-get-to-school

Magsambol, B. (2020). No student left behind? During pandemic, Education ‘only for those who can
afford’. Rappler.
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/education-only-for-people-who-can-afford-coronavirus-pand
emic

The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines - Article XIV. Official Gazette.
https://mirror.officialgazette.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines/th
e-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines-article-xiv/