DepEd eyes fewer classes to revert to old school calendar by June 2025

The Department of Education is planning to cut the number of school days and hold some Saturday classes in school year 2024 to 2025 amid its "aggressive" push to revert to the old academic calendar by June 2025.

"We will be reducing the school days to something like 163. We are considering the conduct of Saturday classes, most likely, but it is not going to be every Saturday," DepEd Director Leila Areola told the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture during a briefing on Monday.

For the Saturday makeup classes, Areola said they would consult teachers, parents and learners.

"There will just be certain Saturdays when we need to conduct distance learning so that we will be able to cover the competencies that might not be covered with reduction of the [school days]," she said.

The DepEd already submitted to President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. its plan to revert to the old academic calendar by 2025 and is just awaiting for his action.

Areola, during the same House briefing, also reiterated DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Bringas' statement during the April 30 Senate hearing that the DepEd is committed to implement initial steps in transitioning to the old school calendar within this year. 

"[Under our proposal] for the school year 2024 to 2025, we are going to start the school year by July 29, 2024. So we are considering March 31 [2025] as the end of the school year. The following school year, 2025 to 2026, we will be starting school by June," Areola said.

Pasig City Representative Roman Romulo, the committee chairman, welcomed DepEd's push to return to June-to-March school calendar given that the intense heat in the last two months has already prompted a lot of class suspensions.

"This [heat] is the fault of nobody. Mainit talaga, at hirap ang mga guro at estudyante,” Romulo said.

"This is a good aggressive push," he added. —KBK/NB, GMA Integrated News