Sen. Gatchalian raises concern over extended online classes as it may be stressful to both students and parents during the pandemic

In an earlier report, DepEd Undersecretary Jesus Mateo said that the online classes may be extended around 7 to 8 hours. The adjustment of the lesson hours have to be made because of DepEd’s decision to move the class opening from the original schedule of August 24 to October 5.

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Following DepEd's decision, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee, suggested on Tuesday that  the department needs to study “very carefully” the plan to extend the hours of online classes and to consider how it could add another form of stress to students and their families in the middle of the pandemic. 

Gatchalian added that there is a need to balance the quality of learning to the mental well-being of the children and as well as their families. He said, 

This is an option that we can do; we can also do remedial classes during the weekend. But we need to balance very carefully because the pandemic created a lot of mental stress to our parents and to our students and another stress from school will not help the well-being of our families,

Admittedly, we haven’t done this in the past, we haven’t done this in our entire education history…Our families are being put in a lot of stress from livelihood, from employment, from bringing food to their families another stress from school will not help.

Gatchalian also cited the number of hours the students will be exposed in their computer or smartphone screens if the online classes will be extended. He said,

Smart phones are very small, staring at the phone for seven to eight hours would not be a good idea. It will create a lot of strain to their eyes and also to their minds,

That’s why we need to study this very carefully, we cannot just mandate the 8-hour classes on a cellphone. We have to make sure that the well-being of our children and our families will not be affected with these changes.