COLUMN

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) said Wednesday that there are no plans to
revert to the old academic calendar that starts classes in June.

This was in reaction to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian's proposal to return students’ summer break to April and May
after around 100 students in Laguna had to be rushed to a hospital last week due to heat exhaustion from
joining fire and earthquake drills.

“At the moment, there are no plans to revert,” DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa said in a message to
reporters.

This school year, classes in public schools started during the last week of August and will end by the first week
of July. DepEd’s typical pre-pandemic academic calendar ran from June to April of next year.

Before the pandemic, DepEd repeatedly rejected calls to adjust its calendar to synchronize with the August
class opening in higher education, which the Commission on Higher Education recommended for state
universities in 2019 to cover the same period as the government’s fiscal year.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, DepEd had to delay its class opening to October in 2020 after it hit
snags in its preparations for blended learning.

This means that this school year is the first time that most face-to-face classes in public schools are held during
the summer, giving the agency a test case on whether its students and personnel can cope with a hotter
classroom environment.

Poa said that school heads “have the discretion to suspend in-person classes and immediately switch to
(Alternative Delivery Mode) or blended learning if the environment is not conducive to learning.”

A survey of around 11,000 teachers released on Tuesday found that at least 67% of public school teachers
experienced "intolerable" heat inside the classroom, distracting students and affecting their attendance.

The survey also found that classroom conditions were causing students with ailments — many of whom had
asthma — to get sick.