International Youth Day ’21: Youth group stresses the need for accessible, quality education as pandemic drones on

History has since proved the youth’s integral role in shaping the present and future of a society. The youth have also proven able to unite to promote or defend their rights and welfare. Even at the height of a pandemic, their collective force and unity have not faltered.

Kabataan Partylist (KPL), its Metro Manila chapter, re-issued the call for #BalikPaaralanIpaglaban along with #SolusyongMedikalHindiMilitar. The group asserted that education in the new normal is a hybrid form of face-to-face and distance classes, with implementation of health protocols and upgrading education and health facilities and services in schools. The group said that even now that the government is struggling with its pandemic response, the conversation on how education in the country can be made better and so students and families need not suffer or be shortchanged must already be addressed.

The Philippines remained as one of a few countries who remained unable to undertake any face-to-face classes, and the group attributed this not just for the need for safety but due to the government’s poor pandemic response. Children and youth become victims of the government’s poor pandemic response many times over because of the effect of the health crisis on education, that the group said has been shortchanged since last year. Other rights and needs have also been trampled or set aside in the name of safety, such as being unable to play outdoors and socialize, while these could also have lasting negative effects on the youth and the children of the country.

The group also stressed how the pandemic year saw the biggest number of dropouts in both public and private schools since the post-war era.

In 2020, League of Filipino Students Metro Manila noted a whopping 1.3 million unenrolled or unaccounted from 2019 enrollment from the Department of Education (DepEd) data. Last year was the lowest number of enrolled students since 2015, when enrolment increases by almost a million per year. It was also noted for the highest drop-out rate in recent history with only 24 million out of 27 million or 11% drop of enrollment. Meanwhile, the Commission on Higher Education did not release data on the dropout rates in colleges and universities last year.

Kabataan Partylist is known as the first and only youth partylist group in Philippine congress, avowed their significant duty to remain at the forefront of students’ and peoples’ campaigns in commemoration of the 22^nd International Youth Day (IYD) on August 12.

In 1999, the United Nations inaugurated IYD to bring light on the socio-economic and political issues confronted by the youth which materialized through dissemination of awareness campaigns.

“Hindi na natin hahayaan pa na maraming magiging out of school youth gawa ng flexible learning, kawalan ng trabaho ng mga magulang dahil sa militaristikong lockdowns, at ang pagkaburn-out sa set-up sa kasalukuyan,” said KPL Metro Manila in a statement.

[We cannot allow the number of out-of-school youths to balloon due to flexible learning, joblessness of parents due to militaristic lockdowns and being burned out by the current setup.]

Last year saw the sudden shift of learning arrangement to distance or flexible learning. Classes were first suspended for a week to two weeks, in sync with the first lockdown declaration duration. Most universities by then have only been into a third of their semester. Class suspensions were extended when the lockdowns were extended.

But when the lockdown dragged on, classes resumed online without preparations for the online shift. Physical education classes became “send me a video of you exercising.” Difficult classes like Calculus were more self-taught owing to difficulties in interaction over unstable internet connection. Physical Therapy classes became video demonstrations on how the patient can do therapy on themselves. Other classes that required physical laboratory, internships—even in the Health Sciences like Medicine—were converted to online classes and requirements.

Following the numerous classes opening suspensions because of not being ready to a full or major online shift, despite the DepEd assuring that online classes would not be mandatory, and no student would be left behind. KPL Metro Manila asserted that those who were unable to enroll due to being unable to shift to online or their parents losing their jobs or their families losing income due to the lockdown and pandemic have been left behind even before classes started.

More difficulties were faced by students in the online, distance or flexible mode of learning, giving way to various calls such as academic freeze, academic break, academic ease, end semester, etc.

But the group said these woes would not end with band-aid solutions that the youth have been thinking themselves, without engaging the government to do better in its pandemic response. There can’t be too many repeated or even endless calls to freeze, break, or ease, but this could eventually happen since even the government is projecting the country to be suffering from the pandemic for a year or more. The end result could be that the youth would be ultimately deprived of their right to accessible and quality education.

KPL Metro Manila further slammed the government for the socio-economic crisis Filipino families struggled with along with the ongoing local transmission of COVID-19.

Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that “the country’s unemployment rate in June 2021 remained the same as the 7.7 percent reported a month ago”. However, over 3.6 million Filipinos were unemployed last year in comparison to the 3.73 million in May 2021. The joblessness during the pandemic was also the lowest ever post-war record.

The Department of Labor and Employment deemed that reimposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the “NCR plus” (comprising Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal) during the month of August this year due to COVID-19 delta variant spike will “surely affect” the numbers of unemployment rate, expecting at least 127,000 workers to be displaced according to their administrative displacement data.

The National Economic and Development, on the other hand, said it could be as high as over 400,000.

In this regard, the Labor department has promised to provide cash aid assistance to both informal and formal workers given the renewed ECQ status in the metro.

The Department of Budget and Management has released P10.80 billion for over 10 million residents of Metro Manila, citing that each eligible beneficiary will receive P1,000 to P4,000 per family. However, many groups said this is not enough, and called for P10,000 cash aid. The government has also only given cash aid for three months despite the country being in varying levels of lockdown and quarantine for 16 months. Cash or financial aid was only being offered during ECQ. But when the quarantine protocol was downgraded to modified ECQ (despite little variations with the strictest lockdown), no cash aid would be offered.

The youth group said that the pandemic has exacerbated and exposed the many inequities in the country, but it should not be an excuse to chip away at the people’s basic rights and welfare.

The youth’s voice would also be needed to be heard in the next elections, they said.

“Sa mga nagdaaang panahon, kasama ang kabataan na lumalahok sa pakikipaglaban para sa pagbabagong panlipunan, pagpapanday ng magandang bukas, pagkapantay-pantay, at hustisya. Kaya hindi na natin hahayaan na magpatuloy pa ang panunungkulan ng pasista, pabaya, papet, at traydor na si Duterte sa susunod na halalan,” said KPL Metro Manila.

[In the past, the youth joined in the struggle for social change, create a brighter future, equality and justice. Because of this, we cannot allow that the Duterte administration’s fascist, negligent, puppet and traitorous rule to continue in the next elections.]