President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said the government is studying proposals to bring back the school break to March.
He made the statement in response to calls from some groups to revert the school calendar to its pre-pandemic version after some students suffered heat exhaustion during their summer classes.
“We are now studying that because many are saying we do that because the lockdowns have ended and many schools are now returning to face-to-face classes,” the President said in Filipino during his interview with broadcaster and former Social Welfare Secretary Erwin T. Tulfo on Monday.
Currently, the school calendar starts every August and ends in July the following year.
Before the start of the pandemic, the school calendar started from June and ended in March.
Earlier, this month the Department of Education (DepEd) announced it created a group to review if there is a need to change once again the school calendar.
“I think the discussion and decision on that [will come out] very soon on what will be the correct [option],” Marcos said.
The President said a major consideration for the decision of DepEd on the matter would be the predictability of the seasons amid climate change.
He noted the change in climate has resulted in abrupt changes in the country’s seasons.
“That is the problem there on whether it will be reverted or not— it’s hard to predict when it will start to rain and when it will be hot,” Marcos said.
“So it’s not as simple as you would imagine changing it because there is no more lockdown. The weather is now changing,” he added. -30-