NEDA Sec Chua Hopes for Full Return of Face to Face Classes in Next Admin

NEDA’s outgoing Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua hopes that the next administration will remove all restrictions on face-to-face classes. 

In a press conference, Sec Chua shared about his only son, Keid Ashby saying “The recovery of the education sector has significantly lagged behind. When I entered government, Ashby was only one year old. Now, he is almost seven years old. He spent his entire Kinder and Grade 1 studying online. He is now in Grade 2 and is only going to school every other week due to an existing one-meter rule inside the classroom that effectively reduced capacity to just 50 percent. This obsolete rule has to go, especially since the entire country is on alert level 1 or 2,”

“Ashby and other children can go to the malls, play in the streets, and even travel, yet they cannot fully have face-to-face classes. This is very unfortunate. For many Filipinos who do not have power, money, or influence, a good education serves as the stepping stone to realizing their potential and securing a better future. I was one of them,” Sec Chua adds. 

“With all our children safely back inside their classrooms, our recovery from the pandemic will be stronger and their future more secure,” he goes on to say. 

According to NEDA’s figures an estimated ₱11 trillion productivity loss across a 40-year period of a working person’s life span for students not able to attend face-to-face classes for a year. 

Secretary Chua has shared that he has already personally written to the respective outgoing Secretaries of the Department of Health and Department of Education regarding the resumption of face-to-face classes. He recalled writing to Secretary Duque and Secretary Briones twice this year, last March and May. 

Source: Inquirer