Summer vacation should be in summer
We were forced to shift school opening to the third quarter of the year as we slowly tried to get back to in-person classes as the COVID pandemic waned – Oct. 5, 2020; Sept. 13, 2021 then Aug. 22, 2022.
Following this trend, schoolyear 2023-24 should start by July, then hopefully next year classes will start in June. This should bring us back to the pre-pandemic academic calendar, when summer vacation will really be during our summer, the hottest months of April and May.
Some critics claim it is colonial mentality that we want to sync our school calendar with that of the west, specifically the US; or a desire to avoid constant suspension of classes due to typhoons and floods. There’s no reason for the former, while with climate change typhoons come all the way to December anyway.
So we should really just go back to a school schedule that considers the realities of our climate, especially since summer heat is now aggravated by climate change. — Choco Cruz, Quezon City
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