AMID fresh calls to delay the school opening, Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Monday maintained that the school year would start on August 24, as scheduled. In a virtual press briefing, Briones said the August 24 date had been approved by the Department of Education (DepEd), Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and President Rodrigo Duterte. “We cannot wait for all these to settle before we open schools, because all over the world, schools are already opening. Undersecretary Revsee Escobedo also claimed that schools were ready and that self-learning modules woulf be distributed to schools before August 24. The department featured several schools’ localized implementation of the Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan, which includes a showcase of distance learning simulations.

Source: Manila Times August 10, 2020 16:30 UTC