“Hindi basta-basta mawawala yun [learning loss]. Talagang magpapile up ‘yun over years,” Angara said during an inspection of Santolan Elementary School in Pasig City, which had been used to shelter residents displaced by flooding during the southwest monsoon, or habagat.
Angara said more than 40,000 schools, or about one-fifth of the country's schools, had been affected by recent disruptions across several regions.
The figure illustrates the scale of the challenge facing a school system already grappling with a large classroom shortage. The Second Congressional Commission on Education has estimated the classroom backlog at more than 166,000.
For Angara, keeping schools out of the evacuation business is part of protecting instructional time.
“My question is DPWH yung responsibility to build evacuation centers. In fact the purpose is to not put pressure on the schools actually. Pag may evacuation centers, hindi schools yung tatakbuhan,” he said.
Schools used as shelters must eventually be cleaned and restored before lessons can return to normal, extending the disruption beyond the period when residents are evacuated. Angara said teachers should not be expected to bear that burden.
“Para hindi lang si teacher ang naglilinis,” he said, calling for additional personnel to help clean schools after they are used as evacuation sites.
Lost days, lost learning
The problem is not simply how many school days are lost, but what happens to the lessons that were supposed to be taught during those days.
Angara said the new three-term school calendar was designed to give schools opportunities to recover missed learning throughout the academic year rather than waiting until the final part of the school year.
“May 20 days, 30 days. Pero yung dinesign natin yung 3-term to make up for this, hindi sa huling-huling kundi on a term basis, ma-re-recover na yung learning loss,” he said.
He said students also needed ways to continue learning when they could not physically return to school.
“Walang in-between. Nag-develop tayo mga modality na pwedeng nasa bahay lang pero may ongoing learning programs,” Angara said.
The department has adopted a learning-continuity framework that allows schools to shift learning arrangements during emergencies, but implementation depends heavily on local conditions and the capacity of schools and communities to sustain instruction outside the classroom.
Angara said local officials were best placed to decide whether classes should be suspended because they knew conditions on the ground.
“Sila mismong nakakaalam ng sitwasyon,” he said.
But he acknowledged a problem on the other end of the process: classes can remain suspended even after weather conditions improve because an earlier suspension order is still in effect.
“May issue kasi minsan maganda na yung panahon pero hindi nila kong resolve sila kasi there is still an ongoing or subsisting order for suspension,” he said.###
