THE House of Representatives has approved at the committee level a bill allowing President Duterte to set the date of the school opening beyond August during a state of calamity or a state of emergency similar to the current health status prompted by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
The committees on basic education and culture and on higher technical education late Saturday afternoon approved a substitute bill after adopting the version of the bill that the Senate approved last week on second reading.
The measure seeks to amend Republic Act 7797 (An Act to Lengthen the School Calendar from Two Hundred Days to Not More Than Two Hundred Twenty Class Days) which provides that the school year may open as early as the first Monday of June but not later than the last day of August.
Under Senate Bill No. 1541, the new school year opening will be based on the recommendation of the secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The measure covers all basic education schools, including foreign or international schools.
President Duterte last week said class opening for Academic Year 2020-2021 should be deferred until a vaccine is found against the novel coronavirus to ensure the safety of students.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, however, later said that enrollment in public schools will start in June in anticipation of the opening of classes on August 24. Roque has also clarified that physical classes would still not resume.
The Department of Education earlier announced that AY 2020-2021 will begin on August 24 using different forms of learning end in April 2021.
There are more than 27 million basic education students and 1.2 million teaching and non-teaching personnel in public and private schools in the country.
INTERNET SERVICES
Sen. Grace Poe urged Duterte to compel concerned agencies to address all obstacles in the building of cellular sites nationwide to pave the way for reliable internet services, which are now mandatory as the education system shifts to remote or flexible mode of learning.
Poe made the call after the Department of Information and Communication Technology said the lack of such infrastructures will adversely affect internet services, and subsequently make remote or flexible education difficult to implement.
The DICT has said that country only has around 20,000 cell sites built, a far cry to Vietnam’s 70,000.
“We need as much towers as we can have, which are compliant to safety and environmental standards,” said Poe, noting that around 50,000 cell sites have yet to be constructed.
In the recent Speedtest Global Index, internet speed in the Philippines was still among world’s slowest at 21 mbps, compared to the global average of 74.74 mbps. The country ranked 110th out of 174 countries.
Poe expressed hope that the push of the President will help expedite the processes necessary to build network connectivity, following his intervention in a number of issues raised by affected stakeholders.
Poe is co-author of Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business Act, which mandates local government units to streamline the approval of permits and licenses necessary for building cell towers. Essential telecommunications work, including the construction of cell sites, has been allowed even during the lockdown, under guidelines approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases. — With Raymond Africa
