THREE areas including Davao, the hometown of President Duterte, begged off from, the pilot testing of face –to-face classes in January 2021 amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
This was revealed by Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Briones during a Laging Handa press briefing on Tuesday.
President Rodrigo Duterte has earlier approved the proposal of DepEd to pilot test the face –to-face classes next year in select schools in areas considered low-risk to COVID-19 .
Davao, National Capital Region (NCR) and Cotabato City are apparently reluctant to join the pilot test.
However, Briones did not disclose the reasons of the three areas for begging off from the pilot testing.
“So far nireport ng ating mga regional directors ay 1,114 schools out of 61,000 .But yung Davao , Cotabato and National Capital Region (NCR) nag beg-off,” she explained.
DepEd said around 1,114 schools in “low-risk areas” are set to conduct a dry –run of the face-to-face classes after they agreed to the proposal of the department.
This is out of 61,000 schools in the country.
“May bagong pag- aaral with the Department of Health (DOH) and other studies na ang mga bata may viral load maski asymptomatic nagdadala sila ng covered virus na hindi halata,” Briones claimed.
“Kasi aside from schools, may mga bata na asymptomatic, may dala sila virus naipasa sa household lalo na mixed households sa isang bahay. That has to be considered carefully, Children spend most time at home may different conditions at home, ang mga learner “ the DepEd chief added.
She also claimed that more than 90 percent of infections do not come from schools as she said the source of infection in schools are low while infections in homes are very high.
