Public elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines will open earlier next academic year.
The country’s Department of Education on Monday released its DepEd Order No. 003, s. 2024.
In the said memo, the education bureau plotted the important dates both in the current school year, as well as the following one.
For the ongoing School Year 2023-24, DepEd said that it will close two weeks earlier than its original scheduled end on June 14, 2024.
SY 2023-24 will end on May 31, 2024.
Meanwhile, the forthcoming School Year 2024-25 will be opened on July 29, 2024, with classes set to run until May 16, 2025.
The newly-revealed schedule for the next academic year aligns with the Department of Education’s plans to revert to the traditional school calendar for public schools in the basic education sector starting SY 2026-27.
The old calendar saw classes run from June to March of the following year.
According to DepEd Undersecretary Michael Poa, this was a result of its consultations with stakeholders, which agreed that classes be held in the traditional schedule, so as to prevent holding classes during dry and hot months of April and May.
The current school calendar became a fixture after the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns in 2020 forced schools to shut down and move to online learning.
Due to the transition, the government then opted to transfer the opening of schools from June to August, before settling with October for the School Year 2020-21.
Starting with SY 2021-22, the Philippines adapted the August opening date for public grade and high schools, in line with the start of classes for the higher education sector.
Although, in recent years, as the country went back to the full implementation of in-person classes, problems arose especially during the dry months.
Due to inadequate ventilation and crowded classrooms in some areas, incidents of students fainting, among other concerns, have begun to be reported.
In March 2023, a single incident during a fire drill in Cabuyao, Laguna caused 83 students to be hospitalized due to heat exhaustion, leading to the cancelation of classes.
DepEd, at that time, allowed face-to-face classes to be suspended due to extreme heat, and permitted the use of distance-learning tools whenever necessary.