Name: Dave Eric B Ocmer

Block: BSED English Block A

Title of the issue: The Philippines Still Hasn't Fully Reopened Its Schools Because of COVID-19. What Is
This Doing to Children?

Author: Chad De Guzman

Source: https://time.com/6124045/school-closures-covid-education-philippines/

"Education is a key to success," In the philippines Education holds play vital role however, Among
schools Calmay National High School and other schools has not yet fully recover from the pandemic
according to the data among the tens of thousands of Philippine public schools shuttered since March
2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and approxiamately one of 1.6 billion children affected by
worldwide school closures, according to a UNESCO estimate.But while other countries have taken the
opportunity to resume in-person classes, the Philippines has lagged behind. After 20 months of
pandemic prevention measures, amounting to one of the world’s longest lockdowns, only 5,000
students, in just over 100 public schools, have been allowed to go back to class in a two-month trial
program—a tiny fraction of the 27 million public school students who enrolled this year. The Philippines
must be one of a very few countries, if not the only country, to remain so reliant on distance learning. It
has become a vast experiment in life without in-person schooling.Educators fear that prolonged closure
is having negative effects on students’ ability to learn, impacting their futures just a time when the
country needs a young, well-educated workforce to resume the impressive economic growth it was
enjoying before the pandemic hit. Globally, COVID-19 will be impacting the mental health of children
and young adolescents for years to come, UNICEF warns. School shutdowns have already been blamed
for a rise in dropout rates and decreased literacy, and the World Bank estimates that the number of
children aged 10 and below, from low- and middle-income countries, who cannot read simple text has
risen from 53% prior to the pandemic to 70% today.If the pilot resumption of classes passes without
incident, there are hopes for a wider reopening of Philippine schools. But without it, there are fears of a
lost generation.

We could not agree anymore thats there is a significant effect of pandemic in the learnings of the
students