Education Secretary Leonor Briones asked President Rodrigo Duterte to allow the Department of Education (DepEd) to continue its preparation for the school opening based on their road map.
Briones said in a briefing aired late Monday night that the education department target to open classes on August 24.
She added no face-to-face classes would be held to allow DepEd to continue with its preparations, in compliance with Duterte’s stand of “no vaccine, no classes.”
“Kasi nakabuwelo na kami. If we suddenly be pulled to a stop, baka madapa kami,” she said, noting they began the road map in May.
(We already started. If we suddenly are pulled to a stop, we could fail.)
“We have to select or identify a date. We can’t keep the people hanging… Several months ago, we consulted nearly 800,000 respondents to what is the appropriate date, and August consistently came out,” she said.
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DepEd continues preparation for school opening
The Education Secretary noted she already coordinated with two telecommunication companies, which could provide free internet access.
Learners who do not have access to radio, television, and the internet would use printed materials, Briones added.
“We are also producing learning modules, but the children should not be getting out to get the manual… We are going to work very closely with LGUs kasi’ yong mga barangay, sa kanilang mga kiosk ide-deposit ang learning modules. Pi-pick-up-in ng parents then in the afternoon, kung ano ang homework nila, ang teachers naman ang mag-pick-up at mag-correct,” Briones said.
(We are going to work very closely with LGUs because we would deposit the learning modules in their kiosk. The parents would pick them up in the afternoon. The teachers then would pick up the student’s homework in the afternoon to check them.)
“It will be a relay of materials kung hanggang manual lang ang makayanan ng isang local government,” she added.
(It will be a relay of materials if the local government could only afford manual learning.)
Briones said that since the beginning of enrollment on June 1, a total of 10,654,795 learners had enrolled online.
She said Region IV-A and Region III have the highest number of enrollees.