MONDAY, October 5 marked a historic day for us at the Department of Education (DepEd) as we officially opened the School Year 2020-2021 in all its public schools nationwide. With the goal of ensuring education continues amid the pandemic, we from DepEd under the leadership of Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones also underscore the health and safety of its learners.
The opening of this School Year 2020-2021 is a testament that the spirit of bayanihan is very alive especially now that we are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. As we have always said and believed, it takes a village to educate a child. This threat, which has continuously affected our lives and work, is still an invisible enemy that we have not yet defeated. Yet, this obstacle did not hamper us all in fulfilling our mission to provide quality education to all our learners in Central Luzon.
It was definitely not an easy task to shift from the traditional mode of teaching to the so-called new normal in education. When the Regional Learning Continuity Plan was crafted sometime in May, there was no existing model or benchmark that could be used to respond to this situation. Through the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan, we sought to address all the different aspects to ensure the readiness of our schools, our teachers, our learners and their parents, while we also ensure their health and safety against Covid-19.
With the victory of being able to push hard for the school opening, the hard work and commitment of all our teachers to adapt to the various learning delivery modalities should be recognized. In the same manner, the valuable worth of the endless support and assistance of our partners in education which include our local government units (LGUs) and community officials and other generous organizations and individuals should also be commended.
Finally, congratulations as well to the 2.7 million learners who have trusted our efforts and chose to enroll their children this school year. While it will not be easy to adapt to the new demands of providing guidance to their children in their school work for this school year, having them study using the self-learning modules is still a better choice than leaving them idle while the world still seeks for the cure and prevention against Covid-19.
Congratulations, DepEd and all its teaching and non-teaching force!