“The casino in Boracay was able to open. Even malls are allowed. Why are our schools still closed?”
This is the sentiment of a group of education workers weeks before a new school year opens on Sept. 13 under a blended learning set-up.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) on Tuesday, Aug. 31, pressed the government - particularly the Department of Education (DepEd) - to come up with “concrete steps” that would enable schools to hold face-to-face classes, even on a limited basis.
“We're less than two weeks away before the new school year starts, but, from what we can tell, the President has not moved an inch on his unscientific and clearly harmful insistence on absolute lockdown on schools,” said ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio.
For ACT, the physical closure of schools - which will be in its second year this incoming school year - is major proof of Duterte's “leadership failure amid pandemic.”
The group condemned the “unreasonable” and “harmful” lockdown of all 47,000 public schools in the Philippines while neighboring countries have already partially and fully re-opened their schools amid the pandemic.
“The clamor for limited face-to-face classes hasn’t let up either, especially as it is grounded on dire access and quality issues with distance learning—which the government has no plans to resolve, as far as we can tell,” Basilio said.
ACT noted that in a recent Senate committee hearing, DepEd shared that they have identified 100 schools that can pilot a limited run of face-to-face classes. However, the agency “failed to report on concrete steps” being taken to enable such.
“DepEd has also previously submitted proposals to the President as regards the conduct of in-classroom instruction in low risk areas, but the President rejected all of it,” ACT said.
Given this, ACT urged legislators -- as well as DepEd -- to join them in pushing for a gradual return to in-classroom instruction in order to improve access to and quality of education in the coming school year.
“Let’s do everything in our power to enable limited face-to-face classes,” Basilio said. “We owe it to millions of youth whose inviolable right to accessible quality education has been sacrificed for too long,” he added.