JOEY Sarte Salceda, Chair of the Institute for Risk and Strategic Studies, warned that heavy rainfall and frequent class suspensions may be costing Filipino children nearly 14 percent of their learning outcomes by the time they finish elementary school.
“Rainy days are stealing learning days. Our calculations show that while the direct loss is about 7 percent of class time each year, the real impact on learning outcomes compounds. By the end of elementary school, children may be as much as 14 percent behind where they should be,” Salceda said.
According to Salceda, provinces like Albay can experience as many as 200 rainy days in a year. Across the Philippines, DepEd suspends classes between 15 and 25 days annually due to heavy rainfall. “That adds up to almost a month of learning time lost every year. Worse, the effect builds up over time and pushes more children into learning poverty,” he explained.
Citing World Bank figures, Salceda stressed that 91 percent of Filipino ten-year-olds already cannot read and understand a simple text. “We are already in crisis. Rainfall disruptions are making that crisis worse. Unless we act, climate change will continue to erode the learning of our children,” he said.
Salceda outlined key measures to reduce the damage.
“One way to mitigate the loss is to make sure every child has better textbooks that they can take home, that they can actually read, and that parents can also understand. Another way is to make online learning more effective. That is why the Institute is developing an AI tutor that can guide children through their modules when teachers cannot be there. We will pilot this in the Alternative Learning System and then roll it out to schools most affected by suspensions,” he said.
He also urged schools and local governments to hold make-up classes when clusters of suspensions occur, strengthen remedial teaching, and improve community infrastructure so that fewer class days are lost to flooding.
“The numbers are stark. Out of every 100 Filipino children, 91 cannot read a short story by age 10. On top of that, heavy rains are erasing more than four months of class time and nearly 14 percent of learning outcomes by the end of elementary school. We need to treat this as an education emergency,” Salceda concluded.
