BACOLOD City Councilor Renecito Novero has expressed gratitude to President Rodrigo Duterte for rejecting the move to open the upcoming school year in August.
“We are thankful to President Duterte for listening to our pleading to defer the opening of classes in August,” Novero said.
On Monday, President Duterte announced that he does not favor the opening of classes until there’s an available vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Novero, chairperson of the City Council committee on education, said that President Duterte is also willing to further study the possible scientific and practical ways to continue the education that will not put in danger the lives of both students and teachers.
Novero earlier authored a resolution requesting the Department of Education (DepEd) through Secretary Leonor Briones to defer the opening of classes of schools under its jurisdiction to a date later than August 2020 and to avoid classes which practice face-to-face scheme of instruction until the national emergency and threats to life and health caused by Covid-19 shall have considerably subsided and controlled.
He said the threat to life and health from Covid-19 is real and in fact pandemic and there is yet no known cure or antidote against it which thus constrained the government to undertake strict preventive measures to arrest further infection.
Briones earlier announced that the opening of classes under its jurisdiction shall be on August 24, 2020.
“The opening of classes which will compel both students and teachers to report and congregate in their respective classrooms will indiscriminately expose them to risk of Covid-19 infection which can rapidly multiply to elsewhere and may thus become untraceable and uncontrollable nationwide,” Novero said.
He said the life and health of the children and teachers are unarguably far more important and sacred than academic education so that numerous parents have considered the deferment of school opening an imperative quest lest the whole nation plunges headlong into a more catastrophic second wave assault of Covid-19 victimizing no less than our endeared children and teachers.
“The deferment of school opening and the avoidance of a traditional class face-to-face classroom scheme will not jeopardize our educational system but can rather be protective and preservative of our students and educators and the nation as a whole,” he added. (MAP)