ACADEMIC CALENDAR SHIFT ON BASIC EDUCATION

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) recently announced that all State Universities and
Colleges (SUCs) and Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs) should shift their Academic Calendar from the
month of June to August for the School Year 2019-2020.

Before adapting to changes, there are always some factors to consider. Those factors are often
relatable to its effect and would be benefits to every stakeholder. The same goes for initiating changes.
Organizations opt to change some of their policies and standards for the organization to become more
manageable, to go with the current trends of globalization or counter challenges with the implementation
of the existing policies and standards.

CHED encourages the SUCs and LUCs to shift to an August opening because of the current cash-
based budgeting system (under which, only projects to be implemented within a fiscal year are funded).
If the start of the second semester continues to fall on November, December 31st deadline would not be
met by SUCs and that the reimbursement will take longer to be received.

CHED Secretary mentioned that it is better to shift to the new proposed calendar as it supports
internationalization, as it is easier to develop international linkages and exchange of students with some
ASEAN Universities if they have the same school academic calendar. He also said that it would also be
more advantageous for the students since they have more months to prepare for college.

However, despite the recommendation of CHED, the Department of Education (DepEd) has not
shifted to the new one. DepEd still follows the same academic calendar of Basic Education for the School
Year 2019-2020 which has started in June. This was due to the following reasons: the schedule for the S/Y
2019-2020 has already been approved by the Executive Committee (ExeCom) before CHED announcing
the said shift, with that, DepEd can no longer make some adjustment on the said schedule. It is even more
difficult for the organization to make some abrupt adjustment considering that Basic Education Students'
population is much bigger, having 23 million students from Kinder to Secondary level in public schools
alone, compared to that of the Higher Education.

DepEd is hesitant to move to the academic calendar because of major considerations such as
students' health, school facilities and the lined-up activities scheduled for the summer season.

I firmly believe that the DepEd Secretary's decision is reasonable given the fact that students from
Basic Education are much younger than that of Higher Education. Hence, having a schedule during
summer months would become a struggle for them as during summer days smaller children are more
susceptible to diseases like measles, sore eyes, dengue, etc., most especially given the facilities in public
schools. Public school classrooms are not too well ventilated as they do not have air conditioning units
and electric fans are not enough.

Small children are also looking forward to summer months as during these months they will be
able to spend it with their families as it is the best time to go out for vacation, excursion, swimming, and
reunion.
 Basic Education also has activities during summer or vacation periods and changing the school
calendar might affect the activities. Teachers also look forward to the activities as that is the time that
they can attend to their personal interests and relax after the long period of stressful work at school.

It is also more justifiable that DepEd remains to its original academic calendar as it is mandated
by RA 7797, An Act to Lengthen the School Calendar from 200 days to not more than 220 class days. The
mandate says that school year shall commence on the first Monday of June and not later than the last day
of August. Moreover, the CHED's recommendation to shift the academic calendar is pursuant to RA 7722
or "Higher Education Act of 1994", wherein Department of Education (DepED) is not covered by this
mandate as it was stated there that Department of Education Culture and Sports (DECS) now Department
of Education and Commission on Higher Education are two separate entities. Hence, they follow different
mandates.