QUEZON CITY, Philippines –
Record heat
in the Philippines this month has forced schools to send children home
for online classes, reviving memories of COVID lockdowns and raising
fears that more extreme weather in the years to come could deepen
educational inequalities.
Pupils at 7,000 public schools in the Southeast Asian country were
sent home last week due to unusually hot weather in many areas that
forecasters have linked to the effects of the El Nino weather
phenomenon.
Teacher Erlinda Alfonso, who works at a public elementary school in
Quezon City near the capital, said she did not know what was worse for
her pupils — sweltering in an overcrowded classroom or trying to study
at home.
"Some students told me they prefer going to school because the heat
is worse at home," she said, adding that many of her students live in
nearby shantytowns and have no internet connection to take part in
online classes.
While teachers are providing offline assignments for students without
internet access, Alfonso said the arrangement left children with no one
to raise questions with.
"If there's something they could not understand, their parents or
siblings are often not at home because they need to earn a living," said
the 47-year-old, who also heads the city's association of public school
teachers.
The Philippines had one of the world's longest school shutdowns
during the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the education gap faced
by children from low-income families without computers or sufficient
internet access.
But with most public schools in the country of 115 million people
poorly equipped to deal with soaring temperatures and other extreme
weather, online classes have become the safest option during the current
heatwaves, teachers and unions say.
In public schools in Metro Manila, the capital region, a survey of
more than 8,000 teachers last month showed 87% of students had suffered
from heat-related conditions.
More than three-quarters of teachers described the heat as
"unbearable" in the survey conducted by the Alliance of Concerned
Teachers of the Philippines — National Capital Region (ACT-NCR), a
teaching association.
Nearly half or 46% of teachers said classrooms have only one or two
electric fans, highlighting inadequate ventilation measures to deal with
rising temperatures.
"The heat had tremendous impacts on children. Some students even
collapsed inside classrooms. Teachers suffered from the heat, too, but
often they would prioritize their students' health inside classrooms,"
said Ruby Bernardo, ACT-NCR spokesperson.
As climate change fuels the frequency and severity of heatwaves, the
problems faced by teachers and students in the Philippines look set to
play out elsewhere.
About 243 million children in Asia and the Pacific are expected to be
exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves over the coming months, the U.N.
children's agency, UNICEF, said last week.
Children are particularly susceptible to heat stroke, and UNICEF said
prolonged exposure to intense heat also impacts their ability to
concentrate and learn.
Since the start of El Nino, "danger category" temperatures as high as
44 degrees Celsius have been predicted by country's weather agency.
Filipino teachers say more measures are needed to deal with extreme
heat in schools — from tackling shortages of classrooms and teachers,
which lead to overcrowding, to providing free drinking water and having a
school nurse or doctor on site.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers has called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to address such issues.
It has also proposed the immediate reversion to the pre-pandemic
school calendar, when the hot months of April and May fell during the
long school break.
Asked to comment, a DepEd spokesperson said its policy of letting
head teachers decide when to switch to online or offline home classes
"provides a more immediate and effective response to heat conditions
rather than knee-jerk changes that would further compromise learning
recovery."
Some teachers say the current situation also underlines the need for more education about climate change.
"Climate change has not been comprehensively taught in our
classrooms. But it's a pressing issue linked to all the other challenges
our education system is facing now," Bernardo said.
For many low-paid public sector teachers, working in packed schools
with non-existent or inadequate cooling has been the last straw.
"The heat makes me want to resign or retire early," said Alfonso.