MANILA, Philippines — The government is carefully studying proposals to bring back the school break to April and May, President Marcos said yesterday, following reports of students and teachers hospitalized due to scorching temperatures.
“We are studying that carefully because many people are saying we can do that already as the lockdown is over, and most of the schools are now (conducting) face-to-face (classes),” Marcos said in an online interview with former social welfare secretary Erwin Tulfo and broadcast journalist Niña Corpuz aired over PTV.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has proposed that schools revert to the previous calendar, where the vacation was during the hot and dry months of April and May.
Schools shifted to distance learning in School Year (SY) 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public schools also moved the school opening from June to October.
In SY 2021-2022, classes in public schools opened in September. For SY 2022-2023, schools opened in August last year.
“We will come up with a decision very soon (on) what is appropriate,” Marcos said.
The President emphasized that the government must also find ways to make schools resilient to the impact of climate change.
“That’s the problem, whether to return it or not because we can no longer say when the rain will start, when it’ll be hot,” he said.
“So, it’s not as simple as you would imagine, let’s change it because the lockdown is over. The weather has also changed. That’s another problem we’ve been looking at ever since,” he added.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to revert to the June-to-March academic calendar as students and teachers suffer due to the intense heat in classrooms during face-to-face classes.
Last month, 100 students in Laguna were hospitalized due to heat exhaustion after joining unannounced fire and earthquake drills.
Electric fans
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III yesterday urged the DepEd to use portions of its P150-million confidential funds to buy electric fans for public schools.
Pimentel added that air conditioning units may be too expensive for some public schools, and the DepEd may not have funds to cover all classrooms.
Special allocations of the DepEd for COVID-19 response can also be used to purchase electric fans and other equipment to lessen the heat in classrooms, according to the senator.
He said confidential funds could be realigned for the purpose of easing the plight of students suffering under the intense summer heat.
Pimentel also urged the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to issue guidelines on giving relief to workers working under the scorching sun or in high-temperature conditions.
He said the DOLE could issue a directive on automatic work suspension, indoors or outdoors, based on the heat index advisories of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.
The senator cited the case of construction workers and street sweepers.
Pimentel, however, stressed that such “heat breaks” should not lead to reduction in the daily wages of concerned workers as they have nothing to do with the hot weather.
He said such breaks would not have a significant impact on businesses as such are not expected to occur frequently.
Shorter hours
The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) has proposed shorter class hours and suspension of wearing of school uniforms amid the extreme heat in classrooms during summer months.
In a statement written in Filipino, the group said that while it welcomes the DepEd’s recent memorandum giving school heads or principals the authority to cancel or suspend in-person classes in times of unfavorable weather conditions, such as extremely high temperatures, another viable option is to shorten in-person class hours or fewer class days. — With Paolo Romero, Elizabeth Marcelo, Evelyn Macairan