The Challenges of Modular Learning in the Wake of COVID-19: A Digital Divide in the Philippine Countryside Revealed

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a global health crisis that has affected educational systems worldwide. North Eastern Mindanao State University (NEMSU), a typical countryside academic institution in the Southern Philippines, did not escape this dilemma. The advent of remote learning to continue the students' learning process has caused difficulties for both the students and the educational institutions. Thus, we conducted this study to assess the students' level of submission of assigned tasks from printed remote learning modular materials under the College of Teacher Education of NEMSU. We evaluated whether the distance of students' residences to the campus or the nearest online learning facilities affects the level of modular task retrievals. We also determined the current situation, challenges, and struggles of the students with remote learning. Our results showed that out of 392 printed learning modules sent to Bachelor of Elementary Education (BEED) students, 299 or 76% were retrieved. There were also 292 Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSED) students who received the learning modules, and 237, or 81%, complied with their tasks. We found that 68% of the total number of students reside within a <30 km radius, while 32% were within a 30-40 km radius. We also found that the distance of their residences from the NEMSU campus slightly affected the percentage of modular learning material retrievals for both the BEED and BSED students, with R-2 = 0.38 and R-2 = 0.07, respectively. Nonstructured interview results showed that most students were constrained by many challenges and struggles in complying with the tasks. These include internet connectivity problems, inadequate learning resources, difficulty understanding the module contents and assessment instructions, overloaded remote learning tasks, poor learning environment, and mental health problems. This study also revealed that the country's digital divide became more apparent as we navigated this new mode of the remote learning system.