FOLLOWING good developments on the COVID-19 vaccine, the Department of Education (DepEd) said it is looking at the possibility of holding limited face-to-face classes, but not this year.
This brings us to the matter of vaccination. Not a few have been calling for free COVID-19 vaccination in all public schools (students and teachers). Indeed, effective adjustment to life under the so-called “new normal” can be best achieved by having students and teachers vaccinated so they can return to their schools for face-to-face classroom sessions.
The current national government goal of vaccinating only 20 million of the country’s poorest would not be enough because that counts only the parents of the students enrolled from kindergarten to college.
Students with financial means, because they are from upper middle class and rich families, may pay for their own COVID-19 vaccination. Or get at least 50 percent PhilHealth subsidy. Why not, right?
Although the home is everyone’s first school, the bottom line is that inadequate are all efforts to conduct formal schooling through modules, blended learning, online learning, and distance learning via television and radio. All of these efforts are just coping mechanisms for the coronavirus pandemic.
We must safely return to classroom sessions at the soonest after COVID-19 vaccination happens. To do this, the national government must have more free vaccines available. If the national budget is not enough, then the Department of Finance must source funding from loans and grants.
The bottom line of this, however, is an effective coronavirus vaccine distribution plan to ensure the public’s immediate access to, and efficient and equitable transportation, storage and distribution of the vaccines. Does the government have one now?
This COVID-19 vaccine is a life saver. Our survival as a nation largely depends on our ability to immediately provide vaccines to our people.
