Recognize internet access as a basic human right under education’s ‘new normal’

Statement of the Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK)

Despite being neither equipped nor prepared, the Filipino people have been saddled with the Duterte administration’s insistence on online learning as a key avenue for education. But even as the calls for an academic freeze until January have grown wider and louder, President Rodrigo Duterte himself has remained deaf to these calls, refusing to even speak on the topic of education, and focusing instead on picking petty fights with Vice-President Leni Robredo.

Online learning has drastically reduced the Filipino people’s ability to access education. Video-conferencing programs like Zoom and Google Meet use an average of 2.4GB of data per hour, burdening students and teachers alike with exorbitant fees that can go as high as P220.60 a day for 8 hours of class. Despite the establishment of the “Free Wi-Fi for All” program in 2016, internet access is still limited by realities on the ground, and the vast majority of people find themselves cut off from the education they have worked so hard to obtain.

The DepEd and the CHED’s alternative solution for online learning, this so-called modular learning, continues to be the only avenue for those without access to the internet. Yet even the suggested modular learning system isn’t entirely internet-free, as students still access the internet in order to fully understand the topics they need to learn, especially in the absence of a teacher.

This administration is mandated by the highest law of the land to recognize that education is a right by all Filipinos, and that no student should be left behind in any circumstance. But the reality of the past months has seen millions and millions of teachers and students alike left lagging behind due to the lack of a decent internet connection. While those with fast and stable internet can continue on with online modes of learning, those who do not have a stable connection, or even no connection at all, must either deal with the sorely lacking modular learning, or give up on education altogether. There is no use in declaring education as a right when the tools needed to access it are restricted to a privileged few.

It only stands to reason, then, that access to the Internet must also be considered a right in the same way that education is. Even in pre-pandemic times, our education system has been plagued with a chronic crisis, government statistics note that only ten percent of students who enrolled in Grade One will finish a degree. With the backlog of the agencies widening every year and the misadventure with online classes wreaking havoc, the much-vaunted 24.53 million enrollees claimed by the DepEd is but a house of cards that will collapse starting on the very first day of classes.

Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK) therefore demands the Duterte administration to recognize internet access as a basic human right. A failure to do so would only further prove that the administration is hopelessly removed from the conditions of the people, and will only lead to millions of more dropouts, and potentially, more deaths.