Marcos aims to revert school calendar by SY 2024-2025

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed hope on Monday that the traditional June-to-March school calendar will be reinstated as early as SY 2024-2025 due to excessive heat inside classrooms during El Niño seasons.

Marcos noted in an ambush interview that he has asked DepEd and his wife, First Lady Sara Duterte-Carpio, for a concrete plan to revert to the old academic calendar by next year.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution on Monday urging the Department of Education (DepEd) to revert to the previous school calendar.

DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Bringas confirmed that the department will abide by Marcos' decision and has proposed ending SY 2024-2025 in March 2025, which would decrease the school calendar to around 165 days.

Among the options presented by DepEd is an earlier ending of SY 2024-2025 on March 31, 2025, and implementing alternative delivery modes (ADM) to prevent learning disruptions despite the looming La Niña.

Party-list Rep. France L. Castro welcomed the President's decision but said it might be too late to recover learning losses and urged consultations with education stakeholders about issues such as overtime pay for teachers.