Schools in the Philippines reopen this Monday two years after the closure caused by the pandemic

Aug. 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

More than 28 million students in the Philippines return to face-to-face classes this Monday, two years after schools had to close due to the coronavirus pandemic, thus becoming one of the countries in the world that has had the longest closed centers.

The Ministry of Education has reported that 28.03 million students have enrolled for the 2022-2023 school year, a figure lower than the authorities’ target of 28.6 million, according to the Philippine newspaper ‘Phil Star’.

“I have always believed that learning will be more effective within classrooms, where students can fully interact with their teachers and classmates,” said the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr, who has asked the centers to take extreme precautionary measures.

At the moment, some 24,000 centers will teach face-to-face classes five days a week, while another 29,000 will combine them with distance learning, although by November 2, all public and private schools in the Philippines must definitively implement five days of face-to-face classes .

The Government has emphasized that going to classrooms is safe. Although the health authorities have indicated that only 19 percent of students have the complete vaccination schedule, the figure reaches 92 percent in the case of teaching staff and other workers in these centers.

The opening of schools throughout the Philippine archipelago occurs at a time when the authorities are dealing with a new rise in coronavirus cases, of which more than 3.85 million infections have been registered so far, of which approximately 61,300 have ended in death.