At Southville 8C Elementary, a public school in Rodriguez, Rizal, Grade 4 students like Armee Paz hurry to class carrying heavy bags into hot classrooms. Many of her classmates, who commute to school every day, often arrive sweating in the face of a blazing summer.

In early April, nearly 4,000 schools in the Philippines canceled face-to-face classes due to heat indexes in several areas crossing the dangerous boundary of 42 degrees Celsius. The cancellations show how millions of children and teachers in Southeast Asia bear the consequences of worldwide unpreparedness to climate risks.

Even now, the Philippine state only offers band-aid fixes. As the stakes rise, climate and education crises converge while historically high temperatures hinder learning for students.

Impeded Instruction

A summer of record-breaking heat exposes inadequate preparations for conducive learning under high temperatures. In a March survey last year by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), 67 percent of the 11,706 public school teachers reported “intolerable heat” in their classrooms. Such detriments worsen now that heat waves across the world move slower and last longer, according to a 2024 study.

Despite experiencing symptoms such as headaches and dizziness, Armee’s classmates choose to brave the heat without infirmary visits. “Napapansin ko [kapag sumasakit ang ulo ko], pero wala lang, parang hinihintay na lang [namin ng mga guro’t estudyante] na mawala,” said Armee. At least 118 cases of heat exhaustion among students were recorded in Philippine schools this March alone.

Studies show that increasing numbers of hot school days negatively impact students’ performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment, an international test periodically conducted across 81 countries to assess 15-year-olds’ performance in reading, mathematics, and science. In 2022, the Philippines ranked 77th overall, with only one public school in Metro Manila receiving passing marks.

While Southville 8C shifted to distance learning in April, select classes were still conducted onsite. Only half of Armee’s classmates attended on some days due to high temperatures while seemingly unable to focus when online. Increased absenteeism and difficulty focusing are common repercussions of extreme heat, according to the same ACT survey. It poses risks similar to when distance learning prevailed during the pandemic lockdown, which led each student to lose nearly a year’s worth of learning.

Neither are teachers spared, working to burnout at an average of 12 hours a day. The climate crisis forces teachers to sacrifice their health amid extreme heat during onsite classes and hastily repackage lessons when online, said Raymond Basilio, secretary-general of ACT.

“When we introduce alternative learning systems, they should be alternatives, not [permanent] solutions,” he said.

Patchwork Policies

A piecemeal approach to systemic crises and lack of climate-centered policymaking are evident. Basic education public schools’ shift from the June to March school calendar to the August to May calendar, for one, was undertaken at COVID-19’s onset, while some universities’ shift was meant to align Philippine school years with international standards.

The new calendar has 60 percent more school days in Metro Manila areas coinciding with extremely hot days, a 2017 study found. Despite President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s decision and Department of Education (DepEd) recommendations to return to the old calendar to avoid the blistering heat, an underlying worry persists: Philippine infrastructure simply cannot withstand rising temperatures.

Out of the 159,000 backlogs on DepEd’s classroom construction, 440 of them are repair jobs for classrooms destroyed by climate disasters. DepEd’s per-student spending continuously declines, dropping from P22,979 in 2017 to P19,943 in 2021, putting further strain on the capacity to resolve the 165,444 classroom shortage. Worse, no funds are yet earmarked to retrofit classrooms for climate resilience. 

The absence of climate adaptation funding and lack of concrete mitigative measures for education bleeds into other sectors that are just as necessary in facilitating a conducive environment for learning. The state, for one, forwards the anti-poor jeepney modernization program, without just transition and adequate state financing for climate-informed transport policy that could alleviate commuting heat woes for students like most of Armee’s classmates taking public transit to school. 

Given the overarching effects of climate risks, cross-cutting policies across all agencies like climate retrofitting are needed instead of attempting to solve climate or education crises in isolation, said Basilio.

Retooling Resilience

State planning must also adapt classrooms to climate and disaster resilience rather than making Armee and her classmates bring larger flasks and electric minifans just to withstand the summer. Classrooms must be spacious, well-ventilated, and equipped with electric fans or air conditioning, Basilio said. Beyond that, they must be able to survive storms, earthquakes, and extreme heat. 

This must also come with fulfilling the target of public education funding, equivalent to 6 percent of the gross domestic product, and expediting the academic calendar shift, said Basilio. Mainstreamed climate-aligned policymaking with funding cutting across sectors from infrastructure to transport may facilitate sustainable solutions.

The heat will continue, this year or the following ones, while students already struggle to perform in a rampantly underfunded public education system exacerbated by a fragmented climate framework.

“Paano mo masosolusyunan ang krisis sa edukasyon kung ang isang tumitingkad na major problem na kinakaharap ng buong mundo na climate crisis ay hindi mo bibigyan ng pansin?” said Basilio.

When reworked for climate adaptation, our public education system will no longer force grade school students like Armee to heave and sweat their way to school, letting them learn in safe environments where measures to surpass the educational crisis can be undertaken. ●