A CONGRESSMAN called on the government on Monday to revert the academic year of colleges and universities back to the old June-March calendar for the same reason the President approved the shift for the K-to-12 school year: to spare students and teachers from heat exhaustion.
“We just have one question: are college students heatproof? Is it enough that we shift to online classes or distance learning every time heat skyrockets for college students?” Party-list Rep. Raoul Danniel A. Manuel said in a statement in Filipino.
The Department of Education (DepEd) had proposed shifting the calendar’s end to March next year before temperatures start reaching unbearable levels, which President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. approved last week.
Mr. Manuel said the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) should review the policy of colleges to start their academic year around August.
CHED did not respond to a Viber message seeking comment on the matter.
At present, most colleges and universities in the Philippines are to begin their academic calendar in August or September to end by around June next year, even if they experienced the same problem of having to cancel face-to-face classes due to extreme heat conditions in the summer months.
“Did the quality of education become better due to the calendar shift?” he said in Filipino. “We just went along to follow the standards set by foreign universities and companies,” referring to the decision to shift the academic calendar to its current schedule. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
