The Quezon City government through Mayor Joy Belmonte, has reiterated DepdEd’s Memorandum issued last year on academic ease to help students and teachers as the COVID-19 situation unfolds.
QC Mayor Joy Belmonte expressed understanding of the challenges continuously faced by students across all grade levels since education has abruptly transitioned to modular and online systems due to the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19).
“Due to the pandemic, all systems including the academic institutions had to find a way to continue working despite the physical limitations. This brought in several challenges to our students and teachers,” Belmonte said.
In the Memorandum OUCI 2020-307 released last October 30, 2020, DepEd allowed schools to determine activities contained in the Self Learning Modules (SLMs) which may be declared as optional so that learners are enabled to focus only on the most essential activities. It also allowed for the flexibility in the time allotment and in the submission of activities.
EAU Head Aly Medalla said that families in lockdown areas in Quezon City with students or teachers affected are covered by this academic ease.
“While we are monitoring the situation and have declared some parts of the city as special lockdown areas due to the number of cases in their area, we recognize the fact that we have teachers and students who might be highly affected by the situation.” Medalla said.
Meanwhile, the EAU has also began an evaluation of the blended learning modes for basic education to determine if the current support of the local government is sufficient for the needs of the schools. Principals, teachers, and students all agreed that the city has been thoroughly helpful in responding to the educational needs of the students and teachers.
