Gatchalian warns: Blanket class suspensions amid Super El Niño could worsen learning crisis
Senate President Win Gatchalian on Sunday urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to adopt localized class suspensions instead of blanket cancellations amid the ongoing threat of Super El Niño, warning that prolonged academic disruption could further worsen learning loss.
The call comes as the DepEd enforces Memorandum 64 s. 2026, which mandates suspending all physical and home-based academic activities when the heat index reaches 42°C and above.
While the policy does not mandate blanket class suspensions and instead gives school heads discretion to suspend classes or shift to online mode based on the heat index, Gatchalian emphasized the need to ensure heat-related safety protocols do not worsen the country’s deepening learning crisis.
“El Niño threatens not only the safety of students but also their ability to learn. We must ensure that our students’ knowledge does not regress, as this would further exacerbate our education crisis,” said Gatchalian, former chair of the Senate basic education committee.
The Senate leader cited a recent policy note from the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) showing that public elementary schools lost an average of 20 teaching days in School Year 2025-2026 alone due to hazard-related class suspensions, such as typhoons.
This amounts to roughly one day out of every 10 in the official school calendar.
The policy note also found that schools lost about 1.4 days of reading progress for every suspended school day.
The findings further aggravate the already severe learning crisis confronting the Philippines, according to Gatchalian.
In June last year, the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, found that 90 percent of children aged 10 or in Grade 5 struggle to read while over 80 percent lack basic math proficiency.
This was consistent with a 2022 World Bank report showing that 91 percent of Filipino children are not proficient in reading, adjusted for out-of-school children.
By age 10, children are expected to read independently.
A recent EDCOM 2 study found that, at the start of SY 2026–2027, an average of 86 percent, or about 4.3 million, public school students still could not read at grade level.
The study covered Grades 1 to 3, as early-grade reading is foundational to subsequent learning. Children at this stage are also less able to learn independently when classes are disrupted and depend more heavily on teachers and adults for instruction, the commission said.
EDCOM2 has long called for more localized, science-based suspension decisions to ensure learners do not fall behind academically while protecting their safety amid weather-related risks.