Old school calendar returning next year

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) will commit to President Marcos’ decision to revert to the old school calendar by next year, according to an agency official.

“In our letter to the (Office of the President) regarding the DepEd’s proposal for reversion to the June-to-March school year (SY), we had already stated that we commit to abide by the President’s decision on the matter,” DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Bringas told reporters yesterday.

To avoid the cancellation of classes due to extreme heat, the President wants the country to revert to the old school calendar of June to March as soon as possible.

Bringas was referring to the proposal they sent to Marcos last month to end SY 2024-2025 in March 2025 and start the succeeding school year by June of the same year.

The DepEd could not yet disclose specifics of the aggressive transition as Marcos still needs time to study the options that they had presented to him.

Under the new approach plotted by DepEd’s Bureau of Learning Delivery, schools would have only 165 days of in-person classes – falling short of the 180 to 220 days prescribed by law.

To ensure that students do not continue lagging in learning competencies, the DepEd may have to opt for alternative delivery mode classes on weekends.

Aside from this, the agency earlier said that students might need to have a shorter end-of-school break as the school year would end by March 31, 2025 and start in June of the same year.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) welcomed Marcos’ pronouncement about the shift and challenged him to take decisive action in resolving shortages in the education sector and confront the climate crisis as part of more substantive “measures beyond a mere calendar adjustment.”

“Addressing the dire learning environment should not end in an administrative act of changing the school calendar, but should continue with more substantive steps of hiring more teachers and building more classrooms to reduce the class size and ensuring proper ventilation in all learning spaces,” ACT chairman Vladimer Quetua said.

“More strategically, the government must comprehensively address the worsening climate crisis, largely