Now What?

What the Philippines can learn from the world’s classrooms in handling education disruption

- Danny Padilla

Covid-19 is an unprecedented public health crisis, touching nearly every country around the world. It also has severely disrupted education, with the latest data from UNESCO indicating that almost 1.3 billion learners in more than 180 countries are affected by localized or countrywide closure of schools.

In the Philippines, the number of affected learners—from pre-primary to tertiary levels—is estimated at 28 million. And just as health officials struggle to contain the spread of the virus, education officials around the world scramble to put in place measures to ensure that learning not only continues but that no one is left behind as well.

Three months—and longer in some cases—into school closures, the situation is getting more desperate and complex. Students, teachers, and parents or guardians are all getting worried about examinations, assessments, continuity of learning, reopening of schools, teachers’ salaries, and loss of income. In addition, some consequences of the pandemic are not as visible: Community quarantines, the closure of schools and workplaces, and the resulting loss of income and livelihood for many families have had—and will continue to have—devastating impacts on health and wellbeing.