TO A few universities and schools like ours, summer break is just about to begin while others were just going about in buying new school supplies for their new school year.
Years ago, summer break is mark with warm, sunny days where kids like ourselves back then would mundanely spend the whole day running outside under the hot, summer sun.
I’d remember the days where we used to bathe in the sea every afternoon and start the school year in June with much tan.
To other kids, it’s an opportunity to earn money by doing small businesses, getting employed in the government-sponsored student employment program during summer, or other sidelines.
Now, after the calendar shift, our new summer break greets us with lots of rains. Umbrellas, which were supposed to be used against the summer sun, is now used against the pouring rain.
Educational institution heads argued that the calendar shift was necessary to conform to the global school calendar implemented in other countries, in line with the globalization goals of the country.
Other institutions like Mindanao State University changed their school days also because it wants to attract international students to study in the university, according to an interview with the University system’s administrators in 2013.
Aside from the campuses of the Universities in different cities and municipalities, their feeder schools (elementary and high schools) have also complied with the shift in 2015.
This may benefit the school by synching with the globe, but it does not benefit people on a micro level very much.
Former College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) Mindanao vice president Kit Iris Frias, in a statement, said that the calendar shift does not benefit students from farmer families.
During summer, students usually help at in the fields to harvest, and summer is the ideally the best time for crops to flourish, since this is the time where enough sunlight allows the growth of the produce.
Some students from fisher folk families also help out with fishing, and the seas are calmest during summer.
Although summer typically is until July, rains already arrive by June. If the calendar shift will be implemented in all schools, students can no longer help out in these activities just when the quality of harvest and catch is at its peak during these times.
Globalization can still happen even if the Philippine’s school calendars do not synch with other countries. As a matter of fact, even if we are trying to appeal to foreign students to come study in our place, we make it difficult for our local students from schools that did not shift calendars to transfer to other universities.
For example, MSU Marawi boasts about having no tuition fees and affordable school payments. Many students have to wait for a few months after graduation or after their former school’s closing before they can enroll in the University.
It is even riskier for others because some might not be able to pass the entrance examinations, even if they did wait for MSU to start accepting enrollees.
DepEd once argued that schools need to start at July or August because the rains and storms become a difficulty to small children who might get sick from the frequent rains. However, domestic welfares, especially to the poor, is still more important, since their livelihood enables them to continue schooling, and parents can only rely on their relatives, since employing other workers might reduce their meagre earning even more.
There is a need to prioritize the educational needs of our own students and citizens first before we start working on being appealing to other countries.