Students and faculty have long been calling for an academic break and voicing out their concerns about the country’s readiness to shift to distance learning.
These concerns were exacerbated by a string of disasters that struck the Philippines, leaving students and teachers to grapple with power outages and intermittent signals.
Despite these struggles, only a handful of schools have granted academic breaks to allow students and faculty to recover from the aftermath of devastating disasters.
This has led students and faculty from various schools to unite and call for a nationwide academic break – in consideration of those affected by recent disasters. Kicking off the movement were students from Ateneo de Manila University, who led an academic strike in a bid to demand accountability from the government, given its handling of recent disasters and distance learning woes.
In MovePH’s video campaign #StoryOfTheNation, we ask students, scholars, and faculty to share their thoughts on why members of the academic community have resorted to leading academic strikes to make their pleas heard.
For many, these academic strikes are an opportunity to send a message to government that one student left behind is still a student left behind. By leading these strikes, the academic community hopes to shape the socio-political climate of the country.
“Academic strike is a message, a cause, and a start. It signifies that we, students, the youth, will not stand idly while the country is in peril. That when we see injustice, then we will not be indifferent towards it,” Ateneo Residents Student Association President Anton Burog said.
In this #StoryOfTheNation video campaign, we hand over the mic to the students and teachers who’ve long been trying to make themselves heard. – Rappler.com
This video is co-produced by Rappler interns Bea Sancio, Julius Villavieja, Liana Apostol, Mina Mata, Russell Ku, and Yanna Estrellado.
How does this make you feel?
