VOLUME 53 NO. 1
16
D E VCO M
Distant Learning: The disparities between two students With the gap between the Philippines’ social classes, is learning still a right or a privilege? words and photos by RENGIL MANA-AY & JOHN REY URBANOZO
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he wakes up to the booze of her alarm from her smartphone and hurriedly goes to shower. She fixes herself right after and eats breakfast prepared by her parents. She then sits at her space and opens her laptop to attend her first class of the day. In another town, a young boy sprints through a field of sugarcane going to the backyard of his friends. While other students are busy with their classes, he takes off his slippers and plays chasing game and hide-andseek all day long—unworried by the modules sent for him to answer. These are the typical class days for Dayne Tuvalles and Rorene Nangan, both students in a private and a public school respectively. They are among the millions of Filipino students enrolled under this ‘new normal’ of education for the school year 2020-2021. The lone learner Every week, Rorene C. Nangan’s father fetches his modules from his school. He is currently in his fourth grade at Sto. Rosario Elementary School in Hinigaran, Negros Occidental. While most of his classmates are given attention by their parents, Rorene has nobody to help him. He lost his mother to cancer three years ago, and his father lives far
