Close the bars, shopping malls, gyms, and restaurants, and open the schools!
Public health experts have been repeating this same refrain since the start of the year 2021 when many cities reopened businesses like bars, shopping malls, restaurants, and gyms — all areas where the coronavirus (COVID-19) is thought to spread readily — without a clear plan to reopen school buildings. And the call has only gotten louder in recent weeks as cases skyrocket in a third viral wave and officials close schools while keeping indoor dining open.
While there remains some debate, schools do not appear to be major sources of viral spread in this pandemic. Restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and gyms, however, are places where adults and young adults congregate, often in close quarters and often without masks do seem to contribute to outbreaks.
Indeed, many European and Asian countries that are currently locked down to mitigate their second waves have allowed schools to remain open while such businesses close because it seems very clear to them that schools and education ought to be their priorities.
As schools around the world gradually welcome back students from their respective schools, the Philippines has decided to keep schools shuttered for another year as the country struggles to control the spiking surge of COVID-19 cases knowing that it is now the only country in the world where schools have continuously remained shut down since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year.
President Rodrigo Duterte vetoed a proposal to try out face-to-face classes in low-risk areas, over fears that children who are not eligible for vaccination could infect parents and older family members.
The government’s decision was met with protests from teachers and children’s rights groups such as the Child Rights Network and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), who said that the prolonged school closures would have long-term consequences on children’s education and development.
But, we cannot keep using new virus variants as a reason for keeping schools and/or universities closed. Various shopping malls, bars, gyms, outdoor places, restaurants, and even cockfighting stadiums have opened, so why can’t schools?
If the government could find ways to reopen the economy, why couldn’t it find ways to safely reopen schools while mitigating risks for the sake of the students?
Remember that Philippine education was in a very bad place before the pandemic – more so now. As if to rub salt in our wounds, the pandemic is another great setback to our already gloomy education scene.
How can we get out of this morass? There are no quick fixes to our education crisis. But in the short run, we need to reopen schools as soon and as safely as possible just like reopening those shopping malls and any other outdoor places.
We are losing a generation of learners with this setup – unprepared and ill-budgeted. If we would still implement distance learning for one more year with not enough budget, no recourse, and no comprehensive plan, we, in the publication, think we’re facing a future of uncertainty.
Duterte may have good intentions in preventing schools from reopening but this decision has long-term negative repercussions for the economy and the country’s human capital. It has triggered an education crisis and reinforced social inequality that could take years to resolve.
Moreover, a recent Asian Development Bank study showed that the full resumption of face-to-face classes in the Philippines could bump up COVID-19 deaths by 8%.
However, the total costs of school closures including forgone future productivity due to lost time in school, parents’ income losses, and private teachers’ income losses, could be a whopping 70 times larger than the monetized benefits of preventing deaths.
In other words, closing schools seems to be a poor way of saving people’s health and lives.
Now, here’s the thing, the experience of other countries has demonstrated that schools can operate without spreading COVID-19 infections. Students can safely go back to campuses by practicing health protocols just like what we are doing in public and outdoor places. Communities can also run under a “new normal” scheme even if restrictions are eased in school clusters.
Yet Duterte is firm in his belief that allowing schools to operate would be damaging to the entire country.
The pandemic may have forced the abrupt closure of schools in 2020 but it is Duterte’s fault that schools are still closed in the Philippines today while restaurants, bars, gyms, shopping malls, gambling venues, and other outdoor places are opened since then. Duterte is not the only leader in the world accused of being incompetent in dealing with the pandemic but he is one of the few who has failed to understand why schools must reopen.
We should bear in mind the importance of prioritizing schools over businesses because it is an essential service, and those other things are barely vital for our economy.
