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CEBU CITY, Philippines – The national government is yet to announce when and what schools in the country will be piloting the resumption of “limited face-to-face” classes.
But here in Central Visayas, the Department of Education (DepEd) said they have already identified at least 12 schools that may likely start ahead of 52 schools that the department earlier endorsed for the pilot implementation.
Director Salustiano Jimenez of DepEd-7 said both their agency and the Department of Health (DOH) are continually updating and coordinating to finalize the resumption of face-to-face classes in selected educational institutions in the region.
Jimenez, in an interview with CDN Digital, said out of the 28 schools from all over the country which they initially agreed to proceed with the pilot in-person classes, 12 of these are from Central Visayas.
However, he begged off from providing further details, including which areas these selected schools belonged to, pending the official decision from the national government.
“We just made sure that these schools really came from low-risk areas. But nothing is final yet. There is continuing assessment considering the situation is very volatile,” he said in Cebuano.
The DepEd-7 director also said they are targeting to come up with the final list of schools in the region that may begin the limited face-to-face classes by next week.
“They’re telling us hopefully by next week they can finalize everything and will notify all regional directors,” Jimenez added.
In the meantime, DepEd-7 will be conducting another round of inspection in schools eyed for the pilot face-to-face classes.
To recall, the Malacañang earlier announced that President Rodrigo Duterte has given the go signal for DepEd to resume face-to-face classes in selected area.
President Duterte’s announcement came almost a year after the educational department started preparations for the return of in-person classes.
Distance learning continues to be the preferred mode of learning in all private and public schools for this academic year.
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