The head of the Education department said Tuesday she supports the proposed law prohibiting homework for students.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones said students lose time for rest and bonding with family and friends due to homework, which is sometimes completed by tutors or carers.
“We want all formal study, assignments, projects, whatever to be done inside the school. When the students get home, they will have free time to be with their parents, friends,” Briones told DZMM radio.
“When I arrived at the department, we made that a policy, but some schools have been used to giving homework.”
Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas on Monday filed a bill seeking to prohibit homework during weekends.
House Deputy Speaker Evelina Escudero sought a no-homework policy for kinder to grade 12 students.
Teacher’s Dignity Coalition rejected the proposed ban on homework, saying it “is not intended to make life difficult for our students.”
“Our teachers are trained educators, we know the value of homework. It’s about discipline, responsibility and continuity of learning,” the group’s chairman, Benjo Basas, said in a statement.
Briones said she was also studying proposals to adjust the academic calendar to cover summer and prevent class cancellations during the rainy months.
Many classrooms, she noted, lacked air-conditioning units to ease the sweltering summer heat. Students might also be exposed to hot-weather diseases like sore eyes, and miss the village fiestas usually celebrated during summer.