THE Marikina City government will tap young professionals from a religious group to assist and guide parents and teachers in their learning as the education system shifts to distance learning set-up amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Marcelino “Marcy” Teodoro on Wednesday welcomed the offer of the officials of the Marikina Valley Ministerial Fellowship (MARVAL) to volunteer their young professional members to be para-teachers or learning support aides (LSA).
MARVAL is a group of Born-again Christian pastors with over 100 member churches based in Marikina.
Mayor Marcy explained that the local government is planning to hire para-teachers to support parents and students in the delivery of basic education services to students during this new learning setup.
“The para-teachers will guide parents and students and provide assistance to teachers. They will also help monitor and track the progress of students in their community,” the mayor said.
“We are very grateful to MARVAL for volunteering to help the city government in addressing challenges in the new normal setup of education in the country.”
Mayor Marcy has instructed the young professionals who want to volunteers as para-teachers to coordinate directly with DepEd-Marikina.
“I already told them to coordinate with each other for a faster implementation of the program,” he said.
DepEd personnel will train the young professionals in order for them, to be qualified as para-teachers, who will help parents to understand the lessons in the learning modules, Mayor Marcy said.
Pastor Frances Talattad of The Rhema Word of God Church said that they offered their support to the city government after learning about the struggles faced by parents and students when it comes to their modules.
“Among the challenges faced by parents under the new normal in the education system of the country amid the pandemic is how to teach the learning modules provided by the DepEd to their children. Most of them cannot teach the lessons of their children due to their educational attainment,” she said.
“Ang concerns namin ,basically, is ang education. Nahihirapan ang mga nanay sa pagtuturo ng module sa kanilang mga anak. Dahil hindi alam ng parents kung paano ituturo, hindi rin nila maasikaso, walang magtuturo sa mga anak.”
Talattad said some parents resort to paying individuals to answer the modules as they themselves have no capability to do so, stressing it defeats the purpose of the modules.
“Iyon namang mga anak na may pera ang mga magulang, ipinapasagot sa iba ang kanilang module. Nagbabayad ng P50 bawat module. So hindi rin sila natututo, na di-defeat ang purpose,” she said.
For this school year, the DepEd has begun the implementation of the distance learning modality in basic education following the start of classes last October 5.
Under the new setup, instead of children physically going to school to learn their lesson, the DepEd employed the use of printed learning modules and online learning to teach students amid the pandemic.
“Kaya nung nalaman ko na mayroon palang programa si Mayor Marcy doon sa para-teachers, natuwa kami kasi sa church namin mayroon kaming young professionals na karamihan work from home. So pwede silang magkaroon ng time na magvolunteer na turuan ang mga bata.”
