Ninety public schools have been approved thus far to continue with the pilot run face-to-face classes in the country set to start on November 15, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said Monday.
At the Palace briefing, Briones noted the Department of Health’s opinion was also considered in the selection of the schools, stressing that their objective was to reach 100 schools.
These schools passed the health and education departments’ risk assessment, which included consent from local governments, retrofitted facilities, and go signal from parents, she said.
Briones said around 1,900 schools had initially qualified for the pilot run, then the number was narrowed down to 600. The DOH then conducted a review of the COVID-19 risk of these schools, and at least 329 were cleared.
In the 90 schools, she said, 93.2 percent of their personnel were already fully vaccinated.
The DepEd aims to start the pilot for in-person classes on Nov. 15 for public schools and Nov. 22 for 20 private schools, Briones said.
Earlier, the DepEd said some schools pulled out of the pilot run as their respective local government units and concerned parents refused to participate.
“The face-to-face classes we are envisioning are different from the face-to-face classes we are used to. These will only be on specified hours and specified places. If there are sudden, unexpected developments, those will stop immediately. That is being done in other countries already,” Briones said.
The Philippines was among 17 countries globally where schools have been closed for the entirety of the pandemic, according to a September report by the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.