Briones: Education can’t wait for coronavirus vaccine

Education Secretary Leonor Briones remained firm that the school year 2020-2021 in the Philippines would open on August 24, noting that education could not wait for coronavirus vaccine.

“As to the matter of readiness, when will we be ready? I’m not of the mind that time will come when we will be 100% ready. By the time we are 100% ready, other problems and complications would have come in,” Briones said at a Senate hearing.

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“If we don’t tackle these problems now, we’ll be unprepared to meet the problems which will occur when we feel that we are already ready… Right now, talagang ang fixed is August 24,” she added.

The DepEd Secretary said the government would spend P395 billion to pay teachers and personnel for a “year of waiting” if classes would not resume soon.

“We’re working against a very tough timetable, but if we keep moving our timetables, then we keep confusing the public, especially the parents and even our legislative supporters,” Briones said.

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Also read: UP experts project 40,000 COVID-19 cases by June 30

The Cabinet official noted that while DepEd’s approach to the new normal is based on international standards, its implementation would have to be localized too. 

“There are local governments, there are units, there are islands which have not even heard of COVID, even as they’re very close also to places which are crowded with COVID victims. We are also monitoring these, and we will be reporting to the President on the situation,” Briones said.

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The Secretary said that although the budget for DepEd was cut by P8.4 billion, which was allocated to COVID-19 efforts, the education sector would push through with its Learning Continuity Plan.

She added that DepEd has already trained 38% of public school teachers (320,000) in using ICT for online education delivery. 

“For offline naman, we also are aware that itong modules that will be printed will cost more than online approach pero wala tayong magawa [we can’t do anything] kung talagang Hindi available ang connectivity [if connectivity is not available],” she added.

President Rodrigo Duterte stood firm on his stand no coronavirus vaccine, no classes which DepEd also supported, hence the development of blended learning.