Photo Release

February 24, 2021

On reopening of face-to-face classes: Sen. Pia Cayetano asks Isy Faingold, chief of education of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), if there are countries like the Philippines which have not reopened schools for the last 11 months. Besides the Philippines, Faingold said, three other countries in the East Asian and the Pacific region have closed their schools nationwide. These are Malaysia, Mongolia and Myanmar. However, he said, the three countries had reopened their schools recently. “The Philippines is the only country in the region that had closed schools the whole time from the beginning of the pandemic,” Faingold said during the hybrid hearing Wednesday, February 24, 2021, conducted by the Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture on the preparations for the return of face-to-face classes for school year 2021-2022. He said there are only 14 countries in the world with a similar situation like the Philippines, nine are in Latin America and three are in North Africa and the Middle East. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)

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