Marcos contradicts Duterte on return to old school calendar

VERA Files
April 12, 2024

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. contradicted the pronouncements of Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte on the return to the old academic calendar for elementary and high schools.

STATEMENT

In a chance interview on April 10, Marcos supported the call for the Department of Education (DepEd) to speed up the move to revert back to the June to March school calendar to avoid keeping pupils and teachers in classrooms that could pose health risks during the hottest months of the year. He said:

“Hangga’t maaari gusto natin maibalik sa dati dahil I think medyo may consensus na talaga na mas maganda ‘yung dating schedule. Kaya’t hindi naman sinasabi na hindi natin gagawin before next year or the year after that… Hanggang may paraan ay gagawin natin ng paraan para mapaaga at mapabilis ang pagbalik sa normal na schedule ng mga bata.”

(As much as possible, we want to bring back the old school calendar because, I think, there is already a consensus that the old schedule is better. We’re not saying that we’re not going to transition before next year or the year after that… As long as there is a way, we will look for ways to speed up the return to the normal schedule for students.)

Source: INQUIRER.net, Marcos says gov’t to find ways to revert to old school calendar, April 10, 2024, watch from 0:42 to 1:16

FACT

In an interview with reporters on April 8, Duterte said that DepEd cannot immediately shift to the old school calendar as they “cannot compromise” the health of teachers and learners by taking away their rest period.

“Hindi natin pwedeng idire-diretso ang mga klase dahil kailangan ng pahinga hindi lang ng teacher kundi ng mga mag-aaral,” she explained.

In February this year, DepEd announced through Department Order No. 003 s. of 2024 the gradual return over a two-year period to the previous academic calendar where classes run from June to March and school break is from April to May.

In the order, the current school year was adjusted to end on May 31 while SY 2024-2025 will start on July 29, and end on May 16, 2025. It also modified the schedule for the succeeding academic calendars with SY 2026-2027 finally starting in June and ending in March the following year.

In a statement on April 9, Teacher’s Dignity Coalition proposed a way to expedite the return to the old calendar by shortening the school days for SY 2024-2025, which would be considered a “transition period.”

“It should end on April 11, 2025, earlier than DepEd’s plan of May 16, 2025. Thus, ensuring that only two weeks of April are utilized in classes, avoiding the entire month of May. By our calculations, this would be around 170 days, not far from the 179 days of this year (SY 2023–2024),” the statement read.

DepEd, however, stood its ground, defending the timeline it had set while stating that it would seek clarification from the President regarding his latest pronouncement.

DepEd explained that the scheduled shift is a product of “extensive consultations” with stakeholders and that reducing the timeline further would have “significant impacts” on learning outcomes and well-being of learners.

It also reiterated that during extremely hot weather, schools are now allowed to shift to alternative delivery modes of learning at the discretion of school heads. This is a “more immediate and effective response to heat conditions rather than knee-jerk changes that would further compromise learning recovery,” the department pointed out.