DepEd, LGUs hire aides to help Bicolano learners

By Cet Dematera

The Department of Education (DepEd) and local government units (LGUs) across Bicol have hired support aides to give personal tutoring to students who are having difficulties in coping with the online or modular teaching due to the prevailing ban of face-to-face classes.

Gilbert Sadsad, DepEd Bicol director, said that the support aides are the ones making personal visits to the houses of students who are having hard times in answering the modules or helping the slow learners understand lessons that even their parents or guardians could hardly handle.

“Since we started this scheme of hiring support aides in November last year, we have also started receiving positive feedbacks from students, parents and even from the teachers about this intervention,” Sadsad said.

Sadsad said in hiring support aides they prefer education graduates and licensed teachers who are willing to do tutorial works,

“We are really glad that the response of the eligible teachers is very positive. They even expressed eagerness to help the learners who are experiencing difficulties in online or modular modes of teaching,”Sadsad said.

He said big provinces that have sufficient budget are hiring more home visiting teachers, as he cited Camarines Sur that hired more than 100 support aides.

Sadsad said the salary of these aides are being charged either in the maintenance, operating and other expenses (MOOE) of DepEd’s division offices, while LGUs are charging it to their local school board fund.

He said that more support aides would be hired once the scheme proves helpful as long as face-to-face classroom instructions remain banned.