Senatorial candidate and Sorsogon Governor Francis Escudero III welcomed on Friday the resumption of face-to-face (f2f) classes across the country, which is part of the Duterte administration’s 10-point policy agenda meant to hasten the recovery of the pandemic-weary economy.
“Sang-ayon at suportado ko ang kautusang ito ni Pangulong (Rodrigo) Duterte sa panunumbalik ng face-to-face classes sa buong bansa. Higit sa economic recovery, ito ang tamang direksyon at solusyon upang muling matutukan ng ating mga guro ang maayos na pag-aaral ng ating mga estudyante (I agree and support the order of President Duterte for the face-to-face classes in the country. Aside from the economic recovery, this is the right direction and solution for the teacher to give and focus the students’ learnings),” Escudero said in a statement.
President Duterte laid down the plans for economic recovery under Executive Order No. 166 he signed on March 21, which outlines areas, including the resumption of face-to-face learning, to accelerate the recovery of the local economy caused by the public health crisis.
“Umaasa tayo na sa pagbabalik sa mga classrooms ng mga mag-aaral ay makahabol sila, muling makasabay at hindi na mapag-iiwanan ng mga estudyante sa ibang bansa na matagal nang nagbalik-paaralan (We hope that as students return to their classrooms, they can continue and not be left behind by students in other countries who already returned to face-to-face classes long time ago),” Escudero said.
Since last year, Escudero has been pushing for the return to in-person classes in areas where cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid 19) were low, citing studies that showed that remote learning was not effective as it should be.
As of March 2022, the Department of Education (DepEd) said there are 10,196 basic education schools — 9,994 public schools and 212 private schools — which have implemented limited face-to-face classes.
More than 14,396 public and private schools, which host more than 2.6 million learners, from across the country have been nominated for the progressive expansion phase of limited in-person classes after they were validated to be compliant with the School Safety Assessment Toolset by DepEd. (PNA)
