Weatherproofing education

MANILA, Philippines — Bad weather has been making Filipino children dumber than ever. Every time classes are suspended because of heavy rainfall, typhoons or extreme heat – students accumulate significant learning losses.

In areas with frequent suspensions, students may lose up to a month of actual instruction, and that dramatically affects learning outcomes, particularly in key subjects like math and science.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara estimates that Filipino students lose about 53 school days per school year on average because of class suspensions caused by typhoons and other disasters. That’s nearly one-third of the school year.

It is not only typhoons. Schools across the country lost 32 teaching days due to the high heat index from April to May, on top of other calamities, according to a study by PIDS, the state think tank.

Students in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), lose 35 out of 80 school days due to weather disruptions. In Cagayan Valley, Ilocos Region and Calabarzon, lost days range from 29 to 33 days.

These disruptions are linked to significant academic setbacks. EDCOM 2’s data indicates that Grade 4 student achievement in math and science registers a decline of about 0.12 to 0.14 standard deviations, which equates to roughly half a year’s worth of learning.

Economist Joey Salceda warned that heavy rainfall and frequent class suspensions may be costing Filipino children nearly 14 percent of their learning outcomes by the time they finish elementary school.

“Rainy days are stealing learning days. Our calculations show that while the direct loss is about seven percent of class time each year, the real impact on learning outcomes compounds. By the end of elementary school, children may be as much as 14 percent behind where they should be,” Salceda said.

Salceda pointed out that provinces like Albay can experience as many as 200 rainy days in a year. Across the Philippines, DepEd suspends classes between 15 and 25 days annually due to heavy rainfall.

“That adds up to almost a month of learning time lost every year. Worse, the effect builds up over time and pushes more children into learning poverty,” Salceda explained.

The World Bank has measured the learning poverty in the Philippines at 91 percent. That means Filipino ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text.

“We are already in a crisis. Rainfall disruptions are making that crisis worse. Unless we act, climate change will continue to erode the learning of our children,” Salceda said.

What do we do about the problem?

“One way to mitigate the loss is to make sure every child has better textbooks that they can take home, that they can actually read and that parents can also understand.

“Another way is to make online learning more effective.”

Salceda said his group is developing an AI tutor that can guide children through their modules when teachers cannot be there. “We will pilot this in the Alternative Learning System and then roll it out to schools most affected by suspensions,” he said.

Obviously, the solution requires digital connectivity. The Konektadong Pinoy Law couldn’t have come at a better time. Its implementing rules should require new industry entrants to speed up broadband connections especially in hard-to-reach areas.

As of August 2025, DICT reports that 78 percent of public schools are now connected to the internet – a notable increase from around 60 percent earlier in the year. But that doesn’t mean all classrooms in a public school can freely use it.

According to a 2022 survey of Metro Manila teachers, 87.6 percent said their school’s internet service was too weak to support simultaneous online classes, indicating that while connectivity may be present in faculty rooms or select classrooms, it may not be robust or widespread enough for whole-school usage.

Nevertheless, Metro Manila schools are better connected than those in the provinces. A 2024 initiative by Globe At Home deployed fiber-to-the-room technology across 88 public schools, mostly located in Metro Manila, greatly enhancing internet access in those selected institutions.

In more affluent cities like Makati, 400 public school classrooms have been transformed into “smart classrooms,” each equipped with 5G-enabled Hybrid Interactive Boards and unlimited internet access.

Despite these advancements, according to DepEd Digital Education 2028 (DigiEd 2028) plans, current connectivity is estimated around 69 percent. It also highlighted that “most [internet access] are limited only to faculty rooms,” suggesting uneven classroom-level internet penetration.

Familiarity with digital technology tools which comes with reliable broadband connectivity in the classrooms is one clear way weather related disruptions of school days can be mitigated.

When schools are shut down because of a typhoon, students can simply cover the day’s lessons by using the computers or iPads provided by the school.

Of course that means students must have an internet connection at home.

Then they need learning modules with AI capability to guide them through the day’s lessons. Not sure if this is even in the planning horizon of DepEd. Maybe civil society foundations should come to the rescue.

DepEd should also encourage LGUs with resources to work on this project on their own. DepEd doesn’t have to be involved in all aspects of delivering education to our people. LGUs should take up as much of the burden as they can.

Maybe within the next two or three years, cities like Makati, Quezon City, Taguig, etc. would have converted most of their classrooms to have broadband and AI capability. That’s how to help our young people catch up from their appalling learning deficit today.

We have a serious problem. Out of every 100 Filipino children, 91 cannot read a short story by age 10. On top of that, heavy rains are erasing more than four months of class time and nearly 14 percent of learning outcomes by the end of elementary school.

Salceda is right: We need to treat this as an education emergency.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco