‘Stakeholders support June school opening’

MANILA, Philippines —  Stakeholders are supportive of returning the opening of classes to June, saying teachers and learners can endure monsoon rain much better than the heat of the dry season inside the classroom, according to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian.

“There is an overwhelming support from the public. I think it goes without saying that we should go back to the original June school opening… My humble opinion is we should go back to the original summer break,” Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate committee on education, said during a recent public hearing.

Meanwhile, Department of Education (DepEd) Assistant Secretary Francis Cesar Bringas says it can take five years to gradually revert to a June school opening.

He said certain factors have to be considered, such as the standard 220 days of classes, and that the two-month break for teachers will have to be sacrificed, which will further require budgets for overtime pay.

“If (the opening of classes is) August this year, next year it will be earlier August, then (the following year) we will (open in) July and finally on the fifth year, that will be in 2028-2029, (the opening of classes) is on June 5; for 2027-2028, it is a June 21 class opening. So we are looking at least on the fifth year, we will have a normalization for a June opening,” he explained.

Gatchalian noted that since last March and onwards, students have reportedly passed out during outdoor activities because of the extreme heat during summer.

Gatchalian added: “In the Pulse Asia study that we commissioned, 80 percent agreed to bring back the summer break from April to May, meaning reverting back to the school opening in June also, there’s an overwhelming opinion to bring it back to the original summer break, it has been our tradition.”

Congestion

During the hearing, Gatchalian also asked about the reported overcrowding of students in classrooms, noting that classroom congestion at the junior high school level was about 41 percent while the senior high school was at 51 percent.

DepEd officials said about 159,000 classrooms needed to be constructed, including 440 classrooms damaged due to typhoons, which needs about P397 billion but was only allocated about P10 billion.

Bringas said that in highly populated cities like Metro Manila, school authorities are adopting a three-shift scheme from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. to address the problem of classroom congestion.

Restore cuts

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) yesterday urged lawmakers to restore the impending cuts and increase the overall budget allocation for the education sector, noting that the proposed budget for all state universities and colleges (SUC) next year is only P100.88 billion, lower than this year’s P107.03 billion.

The proposed new appropriations budget for the Commission on Higher Education also went down, from this year’s P30.887 billion to P29.678 billion.

“The country’s SUCs system is set to suffer about P7-billion budget cut in 2024 and the CHED P1.2 billion, despite the national budget increasing by P500 billion or 9.78 percent next year,” the ACT said.

“With the CHED recently announcing a dramatic increase in the enrolment figures of public universities and colleges since 2017, now surpassing the number of students in private universities and colleges, the looming funding cuts in tertiary education spell graver conditions for SUC students, professors and employees, and worsening of the education crisis,” it added.

A review of budget documents showed that cuts were due to lower funding for capital outlay, which is used for the construction of new buildings or acquisition of new property or equipment.

Enrolment

DepEd is confident that the basic education enrollment for the upcoming school year will hit its initial target of 28 million students.

As of Aug. 22, the DepEd said enrollment in both public and private schools already reached 17,389,572.

“We are confident we will reach this. May not be on the 29th itself since we always accommodate late enrollees,” Bringas said in message to The STAR.

Region IV-A still had the highest number of enrolled students at 2,915,796, followed by the National Capital Region at 2,263,482 and Region III with 1,933,651.

The opening of classes in public kindergarten, elementary and high schools is on Aug. 29, while private schools were allowed to start the school year anytime between the first Monday of June to the last day of August.

There were 28.7 million students enrolled in basic education last year, with around 24 million in public schools.

Diokno hit

ACT scored Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno for claiming that free college education is unsustainable.

“The Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education of 2017 is one milestone legislation, which the education sector and the Filipino people had fought for decades. To backtrack on it is to renege on the state’s duty to realize the Filipinos’ constitutional right to free education, especially of the poor,” said the teachers’ group.

“Diokno’s argument that the free-tuition program is ‘anti-poor’ as it purportedly subsidizes those who can pay is simply of twisted logic. His own assertion that ‘there are more people who do not attend college’ does not fortify his argument, rather it points out that the current implementation of the free college program is not enough to bring in more poor students to public colleges and universities,” it added. – Janvic Mateo, Sheila Crisostomo, Delon Porcalla