As the world faces this pandemic, we are left with no options but to think of alternative ways on how we can sustain every aspect of our life back to normal again. 

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In this new normal, social gatherings and physical interactions were prohibited as a precautionary measure to keep the virus from spreading. Restrictions were also created like keeping our distance from one another, wearing face masks and face shields everywhere and bringing alcohol all the time. And with that being said, it is difficult to hold a face-to-face class.

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Now, classes have been shifted to online, many parents are expressing their concern because a lot of them can’t afford to buy quality gadgets for their children, and because of that, Local Government Units (LGU) are forced to think of a way to adapt to what we call distance learning. 

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In this article, we ranked cities according to what plans and actions they made for the new normal style of education for the students and how effective it is.

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We based the ranking of the cities; first, on their efforts to make lives better. Second, their strategic actions. Third, the effectiveness of their actions. And lastly, how vast it reaches among their people. We will start from the least up to the highest ranking of cities. 

 

Pasay: 5/10

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Due to its limited action, Pasay City scored 5/10, the lowest given score on this list. The only action they made is to give cash aid to help Pasay students alleviate daily expenses during the pandemic.

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There are many ways to support the students aside from cash assistance such as purchasing tablets or mobile phones, providing free Wi-Fi within the city, or even planning for the distribution of modules is a good way to start. 

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They lack strategic actions compared to other cities mentioned that have a lower budget allocated. 

 

Malabon: 5/10

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Malabon City Government received a low score because there’s no plan, no effort, and no strategy that has been made. Students will be using modular learning for the entire school year until there’s no announcement for a face-to-face class. 

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According to the city's government, there is no budget for it to help. Unlike Las Piñas City, even though they do not have any budget for electronic aid, they still have a strategy to make a partnership with DICT to provide free public Wi-Fi to their city. Getting 5 scores is fair considering there’s really no aid aside from giving free modules which every city also did.

 

Marikina: 6/10

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Unlike Malabon that got 5 scores due to lacking efforts and strategies. We gave 6 scores to Marikina because they have distributed gadgets to selected students only. 

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Aside from that, they used modular learning and there’s no more effort nor strategy.

 

Navotas: 6/10

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The city government of Navotas has started the NavoSchool-in-a-Box program to ensure continued access to basic education for the students. 

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The boxes contained textbooks, self-learning modules, activity sheets, and school supplies that had been distributed to selected students only. Kinder students also received hygiene-kit and toys donated by the Philippine Toy Library and other private organizations. 

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Aside from distributing NavoSchool-in-a-box, the city also chose modular learning due to no sufficient budget in providing gadgets for students. 

 

Valenzuela: 7/10

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Valenzuela City sounds promising with its goal of maintaining the school vibes with the program they called Valenzuela Live Online Streaming School.

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The main goal is that students and teachers are going to pretend that they're still in a class set-up through video streaming. 

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This idea came from Valenzuela City by combining DepEd's learning module with technology. Mayor Rex Gatchalian claimed that they were the "only LGU that got as far as trying to come up with an actual package on how we do distance learning."

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While this seems innovative, the structure of the learning system is still very similar, and nothing new to the existing DepEd recommendation that is implemented in several cities and municipalities. 

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They still gave modules along with the free school kits that include backpacks, notebooks, and school supplies to the public students. The given modules were suited with the aforementioned online streaming school. 

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Follow-ups will be later conducted on free online platforms such as Facebook. 

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Canvas, a site that offers a free online platform, will be provided for free to some 8,000 students by the local government. It will be used in a few schools within the city and the city government will shoulder data subscriptions.

 

Caloocan: 7/10

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Mayor Oscar “Oca” Malapitan gave 66,000 tablet devices from Grade 9 to 12 city’s public students with help from the School Division Office (SDO) of Caloocan. Meanwhile, Kinder to Grade 8 students received their free module, because they believed that students from this level don’t really need to use gadgets for their school works. 

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They provided free modules that ought to be claimed by their parents at their respective schools. Mayor Oca also bid printing machines for the modules. 

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According to the City Mayor, “Sa abot ng ating makakaya ay hindi po natin pinabayaan ang ating mga mag-aaral.”

 

Las Piñas: 7/10

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A 7 out of 10 rating is given to Las Piñas City. Due to budget deficiency for electronic or gadget aid, the city was not able to provide support for this aspect of online learning. However, the city government installed free public Wi-Fi in all 43 public schools. 

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About 100,000 students and 4,000 teachers will benefit from the free Wi-Fi project. Mayor Imelda Aguilar made a partnership with the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) in an attempt to make an effort to at least help the students and teachers in their city. 

 

Manila: 7/10

Manila City has allotted Php 994 million to provide laptops to teachers and tablets to students. 10,300 teachers in public schools in the city received a free laptop while 110,000 students from Kinder to Grade 12 received their own tablets. They also provided free public Wi-Fis and pocket Wi-Fis that renew every month for the public-school teachers.

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Muntinlupa: 7/10

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Muntinlupa local government had bid for laptops and photocopy machines for public school teachers.

 

They’ve already distributed the first batch of 2,557 laptops and 28 photocopy machines and they will still continue to provide gadgets to the students in their city. The photocopy machines were given to aid in the printing modules. 

 

Mandaluyong: 8/10

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The Mandaluyong City government distributed P557 million worth of gadgets, modules, and complete uniform sets including socks and other school amenities. They have allocated the said budget for the purchase of 41,000 tablets to students from Grade 4 to 12 and 2,300 laptops to all public-school teachers, school principals, supervisors, and Mandaluyong SDO in the city. Kinder to Grade 3 received a free module and a complete set of uniforms. 

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The tablets for students are quad-core with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, with 2G, 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Laptops for teachers have 14-inch Full HD display, Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB of RAM, 2TB storage, with built-in Wi-Fi, microphone, and web camera.

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According to City Mayor Carmelita Abalo, education is important so they poured all of the necessary funds into this area.

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Despite the mobile devices and gadgets having great specs, we did not give the city a perfect score but instead only an almost too-good score of 8/10.

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Pasig: 8/10

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Mayor Vico Sotto made sure no students will be left behind with the ongoing transition to distance learning by raising P1.2 billion to supply gadgets needed by public elementary, students, and teachers. He also urged college students to enroll this semester as the local government tried to produce gadgets as well.

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Apart from this, the City of Pasig also deployed Wi-Fi hotspots so that students without internet subscription can download their modules. In Caliwag, Pinagbuhatan, Community Learning Hubs manned by trained tutors were also established to further help students in need.

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Another factor that earned them an 8/10 rate is that they waived all the regulatory fees for private school temporarily until face-to-face classes are allowed. This is to prevent private schools from closing and to help private students to mitigate expenses from the tuition fees. Mayor Sotto also extended Pasig's scholarship that covers 3,000 indigent students from private schools. 

 

Quezon City: 8/10

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In Quezon City, Mayor Joy Belmonte provided P2.9 billion worth of printed modules, gadgets, and internet allowance to 431,434 public elementary and secondary students of the said city while still anticipating for face-to-face classes to be allowed, they also allotted P400 million for construction, repair, and rehabilitation of school buildings to ensure safety and quality of education.

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Makati: 9/10

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The government’s main goal was to use blended learning. Mayor Abby Binay distributed a learner’s package consisting of an on-the-go (OTG) flash drive, printed modules, and two washable face masks, along with a free load equivalent to five hours of daily internet access to 85,000 students from preschool to senior high school. 

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The public-school teachers also got a free load that renews every day until the weekend. To avoid potential abuse, the city government will limit the sites that can be accessed.

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If there’s a problem with their internet, students can use the OJT flash drive, it contains digital modules, videos, exercises, and other offline learning modules. Teachers can update the week’s lesson to the OTG so that the parents can claim it along with the printed module on the respective school.

Although Makati can afford to give tablets to the students, the city's Mayor still chose blended learning. According to Mayor Abby Binay, “Ang issue ko sa tablet - how sure are you that it will be used for educational purposes? It is very tempting to download so many games so many apps to distract your kids when you have a tablet?”

 

Taguig: 9/10

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Similar to Makati City, Taguig City got its 9/10 score because they considered the quality of the education on both student and teacher's end. 

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The "Telearal Center'' employed teachers trained under TECTOC (Training and Enrichment Courses from Taguig Online Campus) which was led by Call Center Supervisors. It is equipped with 15 phone lines, 20 additional substitutes and support staff, and 50 iMac desktops that will serve as a hotline for students enrolled under modular mode who need assistance in their modules, as well as a station for teacher's online classes for students enrolled under online mode.

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This project will also utilize 500 tutor-health workers to be sent to students' houses if the Telearal Center is not enough to cater to students. 

 

San Juan: 10/10

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The City of San Juan, with the help from the Department of Information and Communications Technology and DepEd got the highest score for investing a lot on the educators rather than relying too much on the donation of financial support and gadgets like the majority of the cities mentioned here.

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They hired experts from Google Philippines, Cisco Net Academy, and University of the Philippines among others to train teachers to navigate the landscape of the digital world and efficiently teach San Juan students in the current state of our environment today caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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More than 400 chosen teachers from kinder to high school, Special Education (SpEd), and Alternative Learning System (ALS) went through 4 days of intensive training on Digital Teacher and Learner's Program that concluded with lesson examples from the trainees. They are taught how to design lesson plans applied with learning theory and frameworks combined with the digital tools and awareness on cybersecurity.

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San Juan City earned a 10/10 score because they were stepped ahead in preparing for the upcoming academic year. Mayor Francisco Zamora already gave laptops to public schools before the pandemic to be used as a teaching tool and now, they have donated tablets, laptops, and free Wi-Fi to the students. 

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Arming educators with skills and knowledge needed for this new (digital) landscape of Philippine education in the midst of a pandemic is the last piece of the puzzle for a great educational response.