DepEd: Make-up classes optional

PUBLIC schools affected by the series of class suspensions because of the country’s hosting of this year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit are not required to hold make-up classes or add extra hours on school days if the required 180 days of non-negotiable teacher-pupil contact time is still intact, the Department of Education (DepEd) said over the weekend.

“The school calendar contains more or less 204 school calendar days, and to deliver all the modules effectively, we only require teachers and our students. If you go below that, then we conduct make-up classes for our students by way of Saturday classes or extended school hours on weekdays if applicable, if there’s no shifting happening,” Education Undersecretary Tonisito Umali told

- days is still intact then make-up classes may or may not happen. It depends upon the school, because we have, like, 24 extra days where we could apply or we could get those classes that we cancelled, and we’re still okay,” Umali added.

Umali said students would be given extra homework.

“The school calendar is designed in such a way that if cancellation of classes like these will happen, we are still capable of delivering effectively the modules, the curriculum that needs to be learned by our students,” he said.

Under the law, students are required to spend at least 200 school calendar days in each school year.

“[W]e comply with that by having 204 school calendar days,” Umali said.