Senator Win Gatchalian is seeking to strengthen the Alternative Learning System (ALS) as part of the education sector’s recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in reaching out to more than four million learners who did not enroll this coming school year and give them a second chance.

To help local government units roll out their localized version of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP), Senator Win Gatchalian introduced a provision in the Bayanihan to Recover As One Act that authorizes the use of a portion of the Special Education Fund (SEF).

Senator Win Gatchalian lauded the provisions in the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2) that will help schools foster continuity of learning through loans and other subsidies while ensuring job security of teachers and other school personnel amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Department of Education (DepEd) has allowed the use of 17,910 classrooms in the National Capital Region (NCR) as isolation and quarantine facilities, Senator Win Gatchalian said that a permanent evacuation center in every city and municipality should be part of the country’s efforts to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senator Win Gatchalian urged the government to ensure that learners and teachers are given psychosocial and mental health support while educators scramble to carry out logistical challenges and many learners experience feelings of anxiety as they await classes to begin amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While Senator Win Gatchalian was one of the first to propose a deferment of the supposed August 24 class opening to a later date due to uncertainties brought about by the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, he strongly opposes an ‘academic freeze’, warning that it would end up increasing learning losses and inequalities among the country’s learners.

With the Philippines officially in recession and growth in the education sector down 12.2 percent according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Senator Win Gatchalian is pushing for adequate education funding in the country’s COVID-19 recovery efforts.

Senator Win Gatchalian is urging the Department of Education (DepEd) to give teachers and non-teaching staff assurance in terms of their health care needs, including the cost of their treatment, should they test positive for CoViD-19 when they start distributing self-learning modules (SLMs) for the opening of classes.

After the Department of Education (DepEd) TV drew flak for grammatical and typographical errors on some of its episodes, Senator Win Gatchalian is eyeing a Senate inquiry on the content of lessons to be used for distance learning.