To bring back “summer” school break, a group of education workers urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to adopt 185 class days yearly.
“Class days have usually been set between 200 to 205 days in the past school years,” Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua said in a statement issued Monday, April 10.
The current number of class days includes 180 days of non-negotiable contact time; In-Service Training (INSET) and mid-school break; and buffer days for class cancellations due to calamities and other unforeseen circumstances.
With the commitment of the DepEd to study proposals to revert the school break to summer months, ACT suggested the adoption of 185 class days yearly.
ACT said the proposal will “finish every school year two to three weeks earlier than the usual schedule and will bring back the school break to April and May after five years.”
Given the DepEd’s current policy to use distance learning modalities in the event of class cancellations and the thrust to declutter the current curriculum to focus on the most essential competencies, ACT said that it is “possible to achieve the learning objectives in 185 class days per year.”
Quetua noted that the April-May school break is “what suits our country best as the hottest months of the year are not conducive to learning, especially with our inadequate, cramped and non-airconditioned classrooms.”
These, he added, are also the peak months for agricultural harvest which the “majority of our learners” in the rural areas participate in.
“As such, we must work towards reverting the school calendar to the pre-pandemic schedule,” Quetua said.
He pointed out that ACT’s proposed schedule also ensures two months of school break for teachers and learners, which have been “increasingly shortened in recent school years, depriving teachers of their right to ample rest and time to recuperate from the gruelling work for more than ten straight months without sick leave nor vacation leave benefits.”
DepEd, on the other hand, was urged to consider ACT’s proposal and “act quickly” on the matter.
“We cannot afford to stick to the current schedule that we have right now as it is affecting the health and welfare of our teachers and learners, consequently impacting negatively as well to learning outcomes,” Quetua added.
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