Duterte orders DepEd to promote health literacy amid COVID-19 crisis

President Rodrigo Duterte has directed the Department of Education (DepEd) to promote health literacy as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duterte said he ordered DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones to equip teachers with “sufficient and reasonable information” to ensure citizens will have basic health literacy skills to better respond to a pandemic or disaster.

“Next year, health literacy will be an important item in our schools’ curricula,” the President said in his message to Congress on the proposed 2021 national budget.

“Through this, the role of each and every one of us will no longer be passive. We will do our part in avoiding the creation of secondary transmission chains.”

The government has repeatedly asked people to observe the minimum public health standards such as wearing masks, washing of hands, and social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Due to the pandemic, Duterte said the government will be expanding and institutionalizing flexible and multimodal learning and teaching options and funding the expansion of DepEd’s Computerization Program.

For 2021, the DepEd aims to print 944.4 million learning modules and provide transistor radios to students who have limited access or have no access to technology.

The department also plans to distribute 37,221 multimedia packages (one laptop, one television set) to all public schools, construct 5,174 new classrooms, and procure 38,917 sets of school seats, among others, under the Basic Education Facilities Program.

The government has also proposed P26.3 billion worth of vouchers and education subsidies to 2.7 million junior and senior high school students.

The DepEd has a proposed budget of P606.5 billion under the P4.506-trillion spending plan for 2021.—AOL, GMA News