President Rodrigo Duterte decided there would be no face-to-face classes until August 2021, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Monday.
“Nagdesisyon na po ang ating Presidente na wala pa ring face-to-face classes,” Roque said.
(Our President decided there would be no face-to-face classes yet.)
“Ayaw niya malagay sa alanganin ang buhay ng mga mag-aaral at guro habang wala pang nababakunahan sa bansa,” he added.
(He does not want to put the lives of the students and teachers in danger while there are no vaccines in the country yet.
However, Roque said face-to-face classes could resume in areas with a low number of cases by August.
Last week, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has proposed to conduct face-to-face classes in more than 400 places in the country without a COVID-19 case.
According to Gatchalian, the relevant agencies in the education sector should study the slow reopening of schools.
In addition, the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) also allegedly made changes to the COVID-19 protocols.
Duterte says no face-to-face classes until August this year
The Senator further explained that of the 1,500 Local Government Units (LGUs), 400 of them have zero COVID and some of them have not yet had a virus case because they are in remote areas, islands and are considered low risk, so it should be opened the schools here.
He also said that the Department of Education (DepEd) should consider the gradual return of students to school or the 50% operation of classrooms.
Gatchalian further explained that we should experiment because it has not been done in the history of the country so we should first conduct an experiment for ‘face-to-face’ classes.
It will be recalled that President Duterte withdrew in December the plan to return face-to-face classes to some places in the country that should have started last month.
The Department of Education (DepEd) said earlier that it is possible that senior high school students will be the first ones to go back to school if the government allows face-to-face classes again.
According to Education Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio, the agency continues to prepare for the dry run of limited face-to-face classes while awaiting the approval of President Rodrigo Duterte and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.