Education Secretary Leonor Briones stated that the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country without face-to-face classes. At the press briefing, Briones stated that DepEd has held talks with UNICEF and confirmed that the Philippines is the only country that continues to implement home-based learning to this day.

“Tayo na lang ang naiiwan, for example sa Southeast Asia, na di pa bumalik sa face-to-face dahil nga ang nangyari, paglabas ng UK variant, nag-worry ang ating Presidente para sa mga bata sa eskwelahan (We are the only one, for example in Southeast Asia, that has yet to resume face-to-face because what happened was, with the UK variant, the President worried about sending the children back to schools),” Briones said.

According to Briones, because of the UK variant, President Rodrigo Duterte is worried that students will be able to return to school.

“We wanted to find out which schools were ready for the pilot testing and there were more than 1,000 schools out of 61,000 that were ready for contextualized face-to-face classes,” she added.

Briones explained that face to face classes in other countries are contextualized, with limited, not pure face-to-face or depending on the situation.

January 2021 was supposed to start limited face-to-face classes in low-risk areas in the country but Duterte reversed the decision due to the threat of the UK variant.