Philippine schools set to remain closed
Schools in the Philippine look set to remain closed until a coronavirus vaccine is made available after President Rodrigo Duterte declared he will not risk the lives of students and teachers without one.
“I will not allow the opening of classes if children are seated beside each other and they are together inside their classroom. It spells disaster,” Duterte said in a televised speech on May 25.
He said it is useless to discuss the reopening of classes if students’ safety cannot be guaranteed. “For me, vaccine first. If it’s made available, then it’s OK [to resume classes]. Remember that,” he added.
The Education Department announced earlier that the academic year would begin in August, sparking concern over children’s health and safety.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones had said, however, that a resumption does not mean a physical presence in the classroom as strategies were being drafted to implement online and distance learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When we say the opening of schools, it does not mean that we will be asking teachers and students to physically go to the school,” said Briones in a radio interview.
However, she admitted that the Education Department needs at least 27 billion pesos (US$540 million) to provide laptops for each teacher in the public school system.
“The direction [of the online learning program] is to provide a laptop for each teacher. I hope we can raise the funds by August,” the education chief said.
The Education Department also revealed that in 2019 there were 800,000 teachers teaching 23 million students in public schools, exceeding the department’s ratio goal of one teacher to 25 students.
Support UCA News…
As 2020 unfolds, we are asking readers like you to help us keep Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News) free so it can be accessed from anywhere in the world at no cost.
That has been our policy for years and was made possible by donations from European Catholic funding agencies. However, like the Church in Europe, these agencies are in decline and the immediate and urgent claims on their funds for humanitarian emergencies in Africa and parts of Asia mean there is much less to distribute than there was even a decade ago.
Forty years ago, when UCA News was founded, Asia was a very different place – many poor and underdeveloped countries with large populations to feed, political instability and economies too often poised on the edge of collapse. Today, Asia is the economic engine room of the world and funding agencies quite rightly look to UCA News to do more to fund itself.
UCA News has a unique product developed from a view of the world and the Church through informed Catholic eyes. Our journalistic standards are as high as any in the quality press; our focus is particularly on a fast-growing part of the world – Asia – where, in some countries the Church is growing faster than pastoral resources can respond to – South Korea, Vietnam and India to name just three.
And UCA News has the advantage of having in its ranks local reporters that cover 22 countries and experienced native English-speaking editors to render stories that are informative, informed and perceptive.
We report from the ground where other news services simply can’t or won’t go. We report the stories of local people and their experiences in a way that Western news outlets simply don’t have the resources to reach. And we report on the emerging life of new Churches in old lands where being a Catholic can at times be very dangerous.
With dwindling support from funding partners in Europe and the USA, we need to call on the support of those who benefit from our work.
