Raffin

All set for a return to 5 days a week face to face classes here in Cavite. Then late pm yesterday the Governor ordered Walang Pasok Nov 2-5. So you can clean up after Paeng he said. Around where I live in Upper Cavite and I think in the great majority of areas that was accomplished 2 days ago. Flooding in Cavite was bad in a few areas in North Cavite. But why apply the order province wide?
Then the Laguna governor followed Cavite. Granted, flooding in Laguna may have been worse due to the proximity of Laguna de Bay. Difficult to find out details. But again I would think the great majority of populated areas are already back to normal.

Looks to me that either no communication by these Governors with the LGUs or more likely these two wanted to look good to a small minority in their province. Maybe also to compensate people after a disrupted Undas. Totally ignoring the loss of tuition to hundred of thousands of school students.. We usually get Walang Pasok posts from the Municipio. Silence this time.

Stokkevn

The problem here, as in many 3rd world countries, each department is insular from others around it so you only do what is told to you by your boss, to ask questions to other departments is frowned upon as it puts your department in the box of not knowing everything so it is better to make a decision even if it is the wrong one as blame can be spread around after the event. The other thing is the hierarchy system used in gov and companies that information goes to your boss only and instructions to the next grade below, sometimes going through 5 or 6 levels before ending up with the person it was intended for.

freebie

How sad it is , the denying kids their basic right to an education is treated so casually by these often big fish in small ( fish) ponds.
First the ex Pres decided that kids would forego over 2 years of education and that they could still learn by no face to face classes but with zoom whereby a teacher was somewhere, a student was somewhere else and the poor /absent wifi signal ensured little learning was done. " Try again tomorrow ".
Or the homework, which was completed by big brother or sister.

Several years from now the country will realise that it has a generation with little attention span ( thank the inane Tik tok for that ), little interest in learning because no one inspired the learning journey and the country, will just go further down the list of those countries who had a chance but blew it. Of course the ex Pres will probably not be here to see what his decisions have done . And now Governors get to have their moment in the sun, and continue to deny kids their basic right to education. A day here a day there and soon, it will be many days missed that can never be regained.

mikemike

private schools doing the same we told in last few minutes that no school for next two days as not all roofs are fixed and expecting more heavy rain

Raffin

Trying hard to fathom the thinking behind why school students in the largest province by population in the country and another nearby province of 2M have been denied a full school restart this week.

Possibly because tropical storms do not usually track over Calabarzon. So instead of seeing people in far flung areas suffering from natural calamities on their TVs these governors saw it in a few nearby cities in their own locality and panicked. But at the top Marcos jnr had a couple of days to reflect and interestingly has now changed his mind and issued 6 month State of Calamity orders in 4 regions, including Calabarzon. He observed that only 1.4M people are affected in them.

The Walang Pasok decision has largely been taken away from LGUs and given by the Dep Ed to PAGASA. If they hoist the Wind Speed signal No 1 over an area then all levels are automatically off. OK for smaller provinces but not for large ones, which they don't split up. Also PAGASA often "plays safe" with TWS No 1...often just a light breeze.

As said here "a day here a day there"..weather, local events like Fiestas added to the years of attended education lost. A large cohort of young people ill prepared for higher education and employment. Older graduates now and perhaps younger graduates in the future will be favoured in hiring. Colleges and Universities will put on remedial courses in a doubtful attempt to make up lost learning.

It's possibly worse in the private schools. Many have closed. A prestigious large school in Manila up to a few weeks ago was going to restart full face to face this week. Then a terse letter was sent out saying that now for the great majority of students they will restart next academic year. No explanation. Yes, the online offering superior to the State school's, those who run that. But 3 years out! Apart from EJKs the worst legacy of the last President IMO.

Stokkevn

They don't miss much if they don't go to school for a few days/weeks/months. Here the academic year is punctuated by a month each in Jan/Feb to prepare for and hold Valentine King & Queen contest, March to prepare for Easter parades, June/July to prepare for dancing and dress up for fiesta, September to prepare for the inter school basketball and cheer-leading competitions, December for Xmas parades.

A friend's daughter was doing an engineering degree, just before the end of the year I had a look at what she was learning, it was calculus and trigonometry neither had been taught in maths at school. My friend's son took my Pure Maths O level paper in to see if his teacher could do it, she could not answer one question saying that English maths degrees are different to Philippines, she was horrified to find out that it was my paper that I passed when I was 14.

I hope the education is better in other areas but I fear not.

Raffin

Not much better. Even in the top private schools a lot of time spent on cultural events, competitions, religious activities.
Dancing another big activity. The 12th grader here in September and October had only 2 days a week at school. A little homework. Seemingly much less than with the paper modules.Yet a good chunk of his last two weeks was taken up with a dancing competition.
You might say that has little to do with preparing him for college or work...yes, maybe little but not nothing. As I recall some years ago PAL ground staff attended a Xmas do and each section had to do some dancing. A good result helped when promotion was being considered. Or put it this way, if you turned it down you did yourself no good. How pervasive that sort of thing is I don't know but my guess is that if you have some dancing or singing talent here it won't do you any harm at work.

Stokkevn

Most potential politicians base their political campaigns on it as opposed to having to come up with policies.

freebie

I can always tell when staff "dos" of whatever shape and form will be happening soon, as there are groups, of up to 30 all practising their synchonised dancing , all being led by a fellow of indeterminate gender. Yep, staff dancing time happening soon. The prettier ones in the front, the chubblies somewhere in the back. Having said that, some of the dancing is actually not bad, and shows the effects of years of doing this starting at an early age in school, plus thousands of hours of watching BTS and Blackpink and copying all their moves via Tikky tokky.

mikemike

I had my two taking on line 11+ review and tests, they were way ahead of their class base