“More grades and longer hours can be expected for face-to-face classes next year.”
Education Secretary Leonor Briones has filled parents’ cups with a mouthful of hope when she said last week there is no turning back in pushing face-to-face classes in January – provided the latest coronavirus variant Omicron is not on Philippine shores.
“There is no pushing back. In the meantime, we proceed. We cannot stop,” Briones told a news conference Friday.
Earlier on, the Department of Education raised hopes the limited face-to-face classes would move to its “expansion phase” by January 2022 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interviewed on ANC, DepEd Assistant Secretary Malcolm Garma said after the pilot implementation this December, more grade levels and longer class hours would be considered.
In the pilot face-to-classes, only Kindergarten to Grade 3 as well as Senior High School students are participating, but if Briones’ timeframe is followed, this means students from Kinder to Grade 12 would resume their face-to-face classes.
But the caveat remains: this would be so, for as long as the danger of coronavirus infection is milder than previously thought.
So far, a total 272 public schools and 18 private schools have been conducting face-to-face classes in the country under the pilot implementation, with Garma underlining the DepEd wants “to learn from this (which) will serve as the basis for our recommendation to the Office of the President if ever we’re going to expand this next year.”
During a hearing of the House Committee on Basic Education & Culture on face-to-face classes, Garma said the DepEd accelerated the expansion of the face-to-face classes, adding DepEd would come up with a five-week report on pilot face-to-face classes after its implementation by the end of December.
A DepEd memorandum dated Dec 9, 2021 directs all public and private schools to get ready for the implementation of the expanded phase of face-to-face classes.
There are of course paramaters that must be followed in the evaluation, to be presented in January, which include compliance to health standards, learning outcome, structures in schools, dynamics on behavior, and awareness of community.
We add that classroom availability must be among the top priorities to be considered when students from the different levels of K-12 will be returning, physically, to their respective classes, not the least the bulletin boards from the Department of Health and the local government units.
If the pilot implementation of limited face-to-face classes in basic education is completed by month’s end, there is optimism that students and their parents as well as their teachers will have reason to hope for the new normal during the pandemic.
The echoes of Secretary Briones’ “There is no pushing back” will have a cupful of significance.