City supports use of learning alternatives amid summer heat

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

The Department of Education’s (DepEd) announcement last week to resort to other learning modalities due to the searing summer heat got the approval of the Iloilo City government.

Mayor Jerry Treñas on Monday called on public school principals to suspend classes amid the summer heat.

“I call on our principals of DepEd to call off classes in case the temperature is too high[.] The authority to call off classes is with you,” Treñas said in a statement.

DepEd-Western Visayas regional director Ramir Uytico on Thursday said all Schools Division Offices (SDOs) may adopt other modes of learning in response to the current weather conditions.

“If it is really hot, as we label it, it’s not cancellation of classes. This is called a shift to any available modality. The main material that can be used in this case are the self-learning modules and the principal can decide with permission of the [SDO] superintendent. Learning should still take place even if the learners are at home. That’s what we can do,” Uytico said in a press conference last Thursday, April 20.

To this effect, Uytico also issued Regional Memorandum No. 282 series of 2023, which reiterates the implementation of modular distance learning in cases of unfavorable weather and environmental conditions.

These include “extremely high temperatures which may considerably affect the conduct of classroom learning and put learners’ health and wellness at risk,” among others.

One elementary school in the city, the Jalandoni Memorial Elementary School (JMES) in Lapuz district, heeded the call by applying a blended learning modality as suggested by their Parent-Teachers’ Association.

Under this modality, learners would spend half of the day in schools, and the other half dedicated to modular learning to be monitored by their teachers through parents via messaging applications.

JMES Principal Alexis Rivas told Bombo Radyo Iloilo that the school logged 89 learners who were affected by the heat as of Friday, April 21. The school has a total of 1,610 learners from Kindergarten to Grade 6.

Some of the conditions the learners experienced included fever, severe headaches, vomiting, and nosebleed, among others.

They also recorded 12 teachers who reported bodily issues in relation to the weather but they continued working despite headaches, coughing, and nosebleeds.

“Our problem here is the extreme heat, so I decided to resort to blended learning, where we would have classes in the morning and use modules in the afternoon,” Rivas stated.

“We cannot wait to have more cases of fever and other illnesses. The DepEd has programmed an option, just in case of extreme heat, to reach out to the learners even in modular learning,” he added.

He cited the substandard condition of their classrooms and their dependence on open windows and electric fans for ventilation.

“We saw the problem in our [classrooms] because our rooms are substandard, and we depend entirely on the air from electric fans. We have electric fans and ceiling fans, but because the air they emit is also hot, it just circulates and the condition remains hot,” he said.

Rivas also opined that he was in favor of reverting the academic calendar from June to March because of the climate.

“We want to go back to normal [school calendar] because every summer, the children should be resting in their homes. [O]ur climate in the Philippines is different from that of other countries. The children should not be going back to school [in these months],” the principal said.

He did not state when their implemented blended learning modality would end as it would depend on the weather conditions.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration’s (PAGASA) five-day forecast for the heat index, issued on Monday, April 24, indicated that Iloilo would experience between 31 to 36 degrees Celsius of heat tomorrow Wednesday, April 26.

The forecast also indicated a range of 31 to 37 degrees Celsius on Thursday (April 27), and 32 to 36 degrees Celsius both on Friday (April 28) and Saturday (April 29).

As of this writing, the PAGASA is yet to issue an updated heat index projection.