Climate-resilient learning system
The Department of Education (DepEd) is proposing a new policy that would allow schools to decide whether to resume face-to-face classes after severe weather disturbances and other disasters even when class suspensions remain in effect across an entire city or municipality.
The proposal, which Malacañang has backed, is meant to minimize lost learning time and comes in the wake of several suspensions of in-person classes in the last three weeks due to severe southwest monsoon rains (“habagat”) and tropical cyclones. On Aug. 19 alone, more than 9,000 public schools across 15 regions suspended in-person classes due to the heavy rains and Tropical Depression “Neneng.”
Education Secretary Sonny Angara has argued that this policy is more realistic than broad, blanket suspensions where cities or municipalities are shut down even if individual campuses are dry and safe enough to hold classes.
As Angara pointed out, students should return to class without delay as soon as conditions allow. But this could be easier said than done for schools that serve as evacuation centers or were damaged during typhoons or earthquakes, for example, making it impossible for classes to promptly resume.
Three-term system
The Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) has already warned that the repeated class suspensions due to inclement weather could further aggravate the country’s learning crisis. It noted that the country already loses an average of 40 to 50 instructional days annually—equivalent to 22 to 29 percent of the school calendar, which is on average about 180 days—to various disruptions.
Angara himself noted that, in School Year 2023-2024 alone, public schools lost up to 53 days out of the 179 teaching days to weather disturbances and other non-instructional interruptions.
Edcom 2 revealed that the frequent class suspensions for that school year resulted in learning losses equivalent to half to a full school year, and led to a 12 to 14-percent decline in math and science grades among Grade 4 students.
The commission, however, has discouraged changing the school calendar—again—to respond to the weather disturbances, especially since the DepEd has just shifted to a three-term system this year that was designed to allow roughly 55 days of learning per term while anticipating several days of class suspensions.
Climate change
Edcom 2 has instead called for a climate-resilient learning system where schools are not just dependent on face-to-face classes and take into consideration that the country is one of the most vulnerable to climate change.
A climate-resilient system, the commission’s executive director Dr. Karol Mark Yee explained, entails retaining the emergency-style modular learning used during the COVID-19 pandemic, where schools distributed learning materials that students could study at home. This minimizes interruptions to students’ learning momentum, considering that even a single lost teaching day can cause an academic deficit and serious learning loss.
“We know from studies that climate change is here to stay. And yes, we understand that unfortunately, the repercussions will intensify further because of the challenges brought about by climate change,” Yee said in a recent interview.
If classrooms are built to withstand disasters, or if schools are equipped with the proper technology to support online learning, disruptions should not even result in lost learning. Schools will merely shift to a hybrid system when the weather does not permit in-person classes, and resume once it is safe for students to return to the campus.
Future-ready generations
Unfortunately, this is not in place in the Philippines, where crucial budget for classrooms and learning equipment has been lost to corruption. Funds funneled to “ghost” or subpar infrastructure projects or overpriced laptops should have been used instead to build sturdier and better school buildings or procure computers, laptops, and other equipment that would have allowed public schools to continue holding classes with minimal interruption.
The DepEd nonetheless said it was optimistic that President Marcos would approve the “granular” policy through an executive order before the end of the year to ensure long-term stability in basic education.
However, the education sector’s problems require systemic reforms, not just an administrative policy.
For one, the country has a severe shortage of 165,443 classrooms and 56,050 teachers—the vital resources needed in addressing the country’s learning crisis.
Mr. Marcos may call the record-high P1.35 trillion allocation for the education sector in this year’s P6.793-trillion national budget reflective of his administration’s commitment to “nurture future-ready generations towards achieving the full potential of the nation.” But unless these funds target critical deficits, his words are mere rhetoric and the record figures remain purely performative.
