SOCIOECONOMIC Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan urged the Department of Education to resume face-to-face classes by August to combat the long-term damage of school closures in the country.

“What’s the cost to our economy, to our society, to our children, to the human capital vis-à-vis the cost of that risk of infection? And it’s clear that our hospitals show that we can manage the risk at this point. And so, there’s no reason why we should not open up the schools,” he said.

Based on NEDA’s projection, a school year of not attending in-person classes would result in P11 trillion in lost productivity over the course of a person’s working life.

Meanwhile, the World Bank said that learning poverty in the Philippines worsened as students took hybrid or mostly online classes over the past two years because of the pandemic.

“The cost of that scarring on human capital is not going to affect us now, but it’s going to affect the future of our children,” Balisacan said.

“When they join the labor market five to 10 years from now, they will not be as competitive as our neighbors, who have already opened up, and provided better access to [education],” he added.

Earlier, DepEd chief and Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio said that she wants the full implementation of face-to-face classes by August.

However, President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. on Tuesday said the country aims to conduct full in-person classes by November.