DepEd urged by teachers' group to help Bicol region from problems in distance learning brought by super typhoon

Super Typhoon Rolly (international name: Goni) made its first landfall in the country in Bato, Catanduanes - an island province in the Bicol region in Southern Luzon. So far, Typhoon Rolly is the most powerful typhoon to hit the country in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It left the place with wrecked homes, destroyed fields and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Students and teachers in the Bicol region are now facing greater challenges on how will they continue learning after the typhoon left.

Vice president of Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in Bicol, Simona Alinio said that apart from the destroyed modules, the equipments that they use to produce the modules were drenched because of the flood.

The group were disappointed when Education Secretary Leonor Briones only offers to find a solution like drying the modules under the sun or ironing the modules.

She didn’t care. It’s as if she’s neglecting us,

Alinio said.

Alinio shared that before the classes started, they had to shell out money from their own pockets, and to plead for donations of bond papers and ink just to print the modules for their students.

Now all that we have worked hard for is gone,

she said.

ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio said that in times of calamities, Briones should act as a true leader that offers comprehensive solutions. DepEd should help the Bicol region recover from the destruction brought about by the typhoon.

This is where the central office should come in. Now that the materials were destroyed, they should help in reprinting the modules. The problem now is that DepEd has no clear directives on how to help the schools regarding this,

he said.

The group is concerned that the teachers would have to deal with the printing of modules once again.