The government on Tuesday rejected calls for an academic break due to the recent destruction wrought by three recent typhoons, which left vast areas of Luzon under water and hundreds of persons dead, amid the continuing threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the primary mode of instruction in public schools currently makes use of learning modules did not affect all schools.
"It did not really affect us because there are no face-to-face classes in our schools,” Roque said.
After the country was battered by typhoons after another amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many student groups sought for a nationwide academic break to assess the education situation and review the workload of both faculty and students.
“Instead of an academic break for state universities and colleges (SUCs), they will only be allowed to extend their academic calendars for one to two weeks,” he said.
He said the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) en banc has already convened and decided that the academic calendar of universities can be extended following the series of typhoons that hit the country and triggered class suspensions.
“The academic break that some are asking for will not be allowed,” Roque insisted.
The CHED and the Department of Education have left it up to individual colleges and universities or local government units to suspend classes.
No country has suspended its reopening of classes even when the pandemic hit, DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali said.
“It's unlikely to happen because as I've said, you may correct me, if you know any country that did not push through its first day of classes due to COVID-19. There doesn't seem to be one,” he told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.
“If we will use this as a barometer, there will be no academic freeze because we think this is the right policy–to continue. As we can see with the latest issuance, we will be flexible,” Umali added.
The agency has implemented an "academic ease," where students are given flexible time to submit requirements, said DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali.
Interviewed over CNN Philippines, CHED chairperson Prospero de Vera III said he is leaving the decision to implement an academic break on officials of colleges and universities, saying they are in the best position to do so since "different schools and different families are affected differently."
“No. 2, no also to the Luzon-wide (break) because the universities are already deciding on it,” he said.
CHED has yet to wait for impact assessments of the typhoon before arriving at a decision.
“This is still a matter that is being discussed. We don’t know yet the actual disaster assessment on the ground,” he said.
“For schools that are severely affected, CHED will help these schools.
And if the assistance is in terms of academic break, then the commission will decide on appropriate time on what is the appropriate academic break for individual universities,” De Vera noted.
Meanwhile, Malacanang warned students who plan to go on academic strike that they would not finish their studies if they do not submit the requirements of their courses.
Some students of Ateneo de Manila have called for a mass student strike to protest what they described as the national government’s “criminally neglectful” response to recent typhoons and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The strike was meant to express solidarity with students who are victims of calamities and who cannot be expected to catch up with their studies within three to five working days.
The students have also vowed to withhold the submission of any school requirement “until the national government heeds the people’s demands for proper calamity aid and pandemic response.”
However, Roque said while academic freedom allows students to express their views, it also permits schools to impose academic requirements.
“If the academic requirements are not complied with, they have the right to deprive students who did not submit or finish academic requirements of (academic) degrees,” Roque added.