THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers was dismayed by the government’s plan to base the reopening of schools on the number of vaccinated individuals, saying schools will remain closed for months because of the slow inoculation program.

“The education sector cannot afford another failed promise, which is what we’ll get with President Duterte’s plan of predicating back-to-school with his snail-paced vaccination program. We need decisive, aggressive, and scientifically backed measures to improve the state of learning in the country,” the group said.

ACT again called for a speedier vaccination program and the reopening of schools in areas with zero Covid19 cases.

“With such poor inoculation rate, our schools may very well remain closed until the end of President Duterte’s term. This is similar to the President’s announcement of ‘no vaccine, no school opening’ last year, which is really just a lazy cop out to a challenging but not impossible task of strengthening the Philippine education system enough to withstand a pandemic without sacrificing safety, access, and quality,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said.

Only 1.2 million or 1.1 percent of Filipinos have been fully inoculated so far, a “far cry”from the government’s target of vaccinating 50 percent of the population by the end of the year.

As of June 1, 2021, the rate of vaccination was an average of 144,402 individuals per day, less than half of the 350,000 to 500,000 daily jabs needed to reach herd immunity.

ACT likewise urged the Department of Education, Department of Budget and Management and Congress to take concrete steps to enable the safe reopening of schools as soon as possible in low-risk areas.

It also stressed the need to address the shortage of school nurses and lack of clinics in some schools.

A survey showed that 42 percent of schools in the National Capital Region and 52 percent in other regions do not have enough comfort rooms and ample water supply.

“Addressing these perennial shortages in material and human resources will permit the safe and limited return to face-to-face classes in low-risk areas, which can provide better access to education to more students who have otherwise fallen behind in the severely undersupported distance learning. This concrete move only needs about P14.68 billion per our computations. It’s completely doable and needs only the decisiveness of the President to realize such measures,” Basilio said.