PRESIDENT Duterte has signed a new law adjusting the school calendar during a state of emergency or calamity such as the prevailing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Republic Act 11480 allows the President, upon the recommendation of the Education secretary, to set a different date for the start of the school year. The deferred school opening shall apply to all basic education schools, including foreign or international schools. The new law takes effect immediately upon its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
Earlier, the Department of Education (DepEd) scheduled the school opening on Aug. 24, 2020 and the end of the school year on April 30, 2021. The President, however, has rejected the resumption of face-to-face classes until a vaccine against COVID-19 is developed, but is open to further talks. Thus instead of in-person classes the DepEd is set to implement distance learning strategies, with TV and radio-based instruction being one of the three main setups with modular and online learning as the other two options.
Students, parents and teacher groups have protested the Aug. 24 opening of classes, saying not all of them could afford to pay for tuition and that not all of them had access to computers and the internet.
While the signing of the law could allay temporarily some of the worries, especially of parents, the bigger tasks of doing the essential steps to enable the safe opening of classes, and ensure accessible and quality education remain primary and urgent. Moving the date of the school opening is only as good as buying the government the needed time to control the infection rate and address unemployment, install preventive measures in schools, and swiftly complete the requirements of the various learning modalities.
It would have been more reassuring if the President’s signing of the law is partnered with his allocation of sufficient funding to address the many shortages in education that makes school opening precarious at the moment, and poses great repercussions to education access and quality.
If the President decides to use his power to move the date of the formal school opening, an alternative learning continuity program should be provided by the government — one that adapts to the situation of our people and relevant to their lives as they live under the pandemic situation. This shall be done in fulfillment of the State’s duty to guarantee the people’s right to education, pandemic or no pandemic.
