EDUCATION Secretary Leonor Briones on Tuesday said that not holding face-to-face classes was the biggest loss incurred by the education sector during the pandemic.

Briones believed that physical classes help students and parents in many ways, stressing that “losing F2F classes greatly affected the education sector.”

“Importante ‘yan for human beings. ‘Yung mga bata naghahanap sila ng mga kapwa bata at ‘yung mga parents hinahanap din nilang ma-face-to-face ang teacher at gusto nilang mabisita ang school,” she said.

“Importante ang face-to-face whether it is one day a week or three days a week. Mahalagang component ‘yan ng blended learning,” Briones said.

“Kasi ang blended learning ay kombinasyon ‘yan — mayroong face-to-face, mayroong iba’t ibang options, kahit na we are going to ICT, digitalized learning, digitalized materials, and developing many tools. May papel pa rin ang face-to-face,” she added.

The DepEd chief said that the agency is looking forward holding the pilot testing of limited physical classes.

For the meantime, Briones said that the department will continue to provide quality and accessible learning through the blended learning approach.