DepEd online education platform opens to private learners

Starting as an online educational platform supporting alternative learning modalities amid enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period, DepEd Commons expanded its availability to all schools offering basic education starting this month. (File Photo By Patrick Roque/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

MANILA – Developed for public school learners, the Department of Education (DepEd) has made its online learning delivery platform DepEd Commons more inclusive as it expanded its features to cater to private school students.

Starting as an online educational platform supporting alternative learning modalities amid enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period, DepEd Commons expanded its availability to all schools offering basic education starting this month.

“Though the country is facing an unprecedented situation, we in DepEd are focused to fulfill our primary mandate of instilling quality basic education to our Filipino learners. We are eager to push boundaries and explore new paths so that education can still continue at the confines of our homes,” Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said.

Briones said welcoming private school learners to DepEd Commons is a good example of the constitutional provision on the complementarity of public and private education.

Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio echoed the DepEd chief, citing that the expansion of the platform to Alternative Learning System (ALS) and private school learners is a significant step in making sure that learning is not hampered by any sorts of emergencies and ensuring continuity of education.

“We look forward to this platform being utilized for an expanded Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM) implementation in this era of the new normal,” San Antonio said.

Aside from learners in the formal education system, DepEd Commons has populated its content with relevant lessons for the ALS program.

Currently, the Open Educational Resources (OER) and teacher-made enrichment activities on the online educational platform has reached to 3,513,442 unique users, under the watch of Undersecretary for Administration Alain Del Pascua.

With this initiative, Pascua hopes private schools can also contribute to the development of OERs, which can be used as supplementary instructional tools that are accessible either online or downloaded for availability offline.

“As we had overwhelming support from learners, teachers and parents, we urge the private schools to do their share in transforming our platform by contributing meaningful learning experiences to all kinds of learners. With your help, our ICT Service will continue to innovate and improve this exciting project,” Pascua said.

DepEd highly encourages the use of DepEd Commons during Covid-19 crisis where face-to-face instruction is impossible although the online platform is given as an option only for those who have access to internet and equipment such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. (DepEd-PR)