Eight out of 10 Filipinos want a return to the summer break of students in the months of April and May, a Pulse Asia survey showed.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Basic Education, commissioned the survey.
The survey conducted from June 19-23, 2023, asked respondents whether they agree or disagree with bringing back the students’ April and May summer break.
Gatchalian said 80 percent of respondents nationwide like to bring back the student’s break during the summer months while 11 percent could not say if they agree or disagree, and only 8 percent said they disagree.
Overwhelming majorities of respondents in the National Capital Region (NCR) (81 percent), Luzon (73 percent), Visayas (90 percent), and Mindanao (86 percent) agree with the proposal to bring back summer breaks.
Across socioeconomic groups, agreement to bring back summer breaks to April and May is consistently strong among classes ABC (83 percent), D (81 percent), and E (75 percent).
The senator seeks a re-evaluation to see if the school year should be conducted during the summer or revert to the old school calendar.
He filed Proposed Senate Resolution No. 672 seeking a Senate inquiry to re-evaluate the critical factors in determining the school opening.
The inquiry will identify policy interventions for the effective intervention of Republic Act No. 11480, which serves as the basis for the school calendar.
Republic Act No. 11480, which was signed on July 17, 2020, amended Section 3 of Republic No. 7797. It provides that the school year will start on the first Monday of June but not later than the last day of August.
Republic Act No. 7797 also lengthened the school calendar from 200 days to not more than 220 days.
Under Republic Act No.11480, the President, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Education, may set a different date for the start of the school year in parts of or throughout the whole country in the event of a declaration of a state of emergency or state of calamity.
The enactment of Republic Act No. 11480 allowed the Department of Education (DepEd) to move the opening of School Year 2020-2021 to Oct. 5, 2020.