By Marie Tonette Marticio TACLOBAN City - The Department of Education (DepEd) in Eastern Visayas has asked school principals to craft a school learning continuity plan to be presented to the governing council, barangays, and local government units as part of their adapting measures to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. DepEd-8 Regional Director Ramir Uytico cited the need to come up with a unique learning continuity plan to promote blended learning using different modalities that are suitable in their localities. "Ideally, there should be 15-18 students in a room. We asked all school heads to come up with their continuity plan because the real battle happens in the school and DepEd cannot do it alone. As of this time, we are still waiting for the modules from the central office. I want a very simple implementation of the blended modalities," he said. He added that if face-to-face sessions would not be feasible, teachers may give tasks for students to be done at home or through online modality. However, the official emphasized that the use of online technology will only be for enrichment purposes. "That is still fair because the curriculum is translated into face-to-face and modular because even the northern part of Tacloban City has no internet access. They would have a hard time," he explained. Uytico shared that they were still in the process of populating data to check the capacity of their teachers, so they can have a picture of their readiness for online modalities. "While our pupils are at home, we can assist our lessons through television and radio. This is not a one-man show. We have LGUs, and we have the private sector to assist us," he noted. He said that they are currently making a survey on how many radio stations are there in Leyte as part of their road map to include TV and radio modalities. "I can assure that we can produce prolific students. Radio and television are for enrichment," he said. Meanwhile, the official said that there is no need to require teachers to come to school, and there are other ways to account them. The schools' division superintendents require the principals to come up with a platform to reach out to their personnel. In no case, that mass gathering in schools will be allowed. It should be the teachers contacting the principals on how to help with the enrollment. "There is no pandemic that can stop the dreams of the children. Give us opportunities to dream dreams. We will level up our mental capabilities," he ended.