The top education official in Central Visayas on Monday said limited face-to-face classes would depend on how far the vaccination rollout for teachers would go, even as many schools are now preparing to open either in August or September.
Department of Education (DepEd)-Region 7 (Central Visayas) director Salustiano Jimenez said in a radio interview the ongoing inoculation of teachers has given hope for students who are expecting to go back to physical classes in a limited mode amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
The vaccination rollout for mentors nationwide has been sped up following the adjustment of vaccine prioritization from priority group B1 to A4 for basic education front-liners.
Resolution No. 110 issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases issued in April states that frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions (HEIs) and agencies are now included in the A4 priority list for Covid-19 vaccination.
Jimenez said DepEd-7 is batting for a 95-percent vaccination of the region’s teachers before the start of the next school year. The current school year ends in July.
“I’m done with my second dose. Some will get their second dose on July 8. So, in time before the opening of classes hopefully and prayerfully, all are inoculated and are safe and ready to face the children because they are already vaccinated,” Jimenez said in mixed English and local dialect.
The DepEd-7, he said, requires all schools in the region to present a “limited face-to-face classes implementation plan” even though the education department, in general, is waiting for the presidential pronouncement pertaining to proposals for a shift to classroom instruction modality.
In Central Visayas, 50 schools are prepared to be the pilot units should DepEd-7 decide to transition to partial face-to-face classes, as Jimenez clarified there will be no simultaneous implementation of the shift of methodology.
“Actually, my instruction is that all schools have to prepare for the limited face-to-face. But we will implement it by batch,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jimenez urged private and public school administrators in the region to know the local situation before deciding which modality they would impose as part of the blended learning method amid the Covid-19 crisis.
He said they should also see to it that interconnectivity is not a problem before teachers decide to again resort to online classes.
“They better adopt the blended modality which is a mix of online, digitized which uses a USB, or printed modality in order to be flexible while face-to-face classes are still impossible because of the pandemic,” he added. (PNA)
