Teachers’ group urges DepEd to include COVID-19 pandemic education in curriculum

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) is once more calling on the Department of Education (DepEd) to incorporate COVID-19 and pandemic education into its curriculum.

Despite the education bureau stating that it has already included health literacy into its learning program, ACT pointed out the need to revisit and update the
curriculum. ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio noted that COVID-19 and pandemic education should be “deeply integrated” in core subjects. He also commented on
DepEd’s failure to discuss the health crisis in its self-learning modules and shared his observation that there is no official directive for the inclusion of the said
educational topic.

In August, President Rodrigo Duterte urged DepEd to promote a basic level of “health literacy skills”, giving instructions to DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones to enable
teachers to educate Filipinos on the proper skills and ways of responding to disasters or pandemics, especially on the matter of mitigating the spread of a virus.

In a televised address, Duterte shared that his Barrett’s esophagus was worsening and could nearly progress to stage one cancer. He was advised by doctors to
cease drinking alcohol so as not to aggravate his disease. His directive to DepEd for health literacy skills came after he revealed the status of his condition.

P754.4 billion of the proposed P4.506 trillion 2021 budget will be allocated to the education sector, primarily DepEd, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and
the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). DepEd aims to utilize the funds to support blended and flexible learning, through the production
of learning modules, acquisition of multimedia packages, and the construction of classrooms.