Philippines struggles to green schools amid climate risks

MANILA - As 27 million Filipino students returned to school in June, teachers' groups said classrooms remain ill-equipped to withstand climate disasters and prevent learning loss due to insufficient funding for education.

Over the past decade, the government had adjusted school calendars to avoid typhoon season, which typically begins in June. After heatwaves forced schools to shut down in the summer months of April and May, the government reverted to a June-to-March school calendar this year to avoid the peak heat index.

While teachers' groups welcome the change, they want the government to do more than tweak the calendar and also invest in infrastructure that will make schools resilient to heat and storms.

The Philippines' education sector is still reeling from natural calamities that damaged school buildings and exacerbated a classroom shortage that the Department of Education puts at 165,000 classrooms this school year.

The department has set a target classroom size of 35 students for primary school and 40 students for high school. News reports say the metropolitan region of Manila has an average of 48 students per classroom.

The classroom crisis is worsening the impact of climate change on Filipino children, with at least 96 percent of them experiencing multiple, overlapping climate-related hazards like floods, heatwaves and tropical cyclones, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

With limited funding for repairs and maintenance, the education department each year asks parents, teachers and students to volunteer to clean, repair and organizes classrooms a week before schools open.

Parents and teachers often fill the funding gaps in school maintenance by donating electric fans and paint or offering free labour, said Benjo Basas, a high school teacher and spokesperson of the Teachers' Dignity Coalition, a nonprofit group advocating for Filipino teachers' rights.

"The solution to this problem in the education sector is not to ask for help from the community, but to increase the budget of schools for repairs, operation and infrastructure, which is the obligation of the state," said Basas.

Greening Philippine schools 

Climate-proofing classrooms and improving emergency preparedness are crucial to greening schools, according to the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has long promised to make schools "climate-ready." His plan includes retrofitting schools and building more infrastructure that can withstand climate disasters.

The Department of Education defines a climate-ready school as a "safe, resilient, learning-conducive, inclusive and green school infrastructure."

But greening Philippine schools remains daunting.

A 2024 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies think tank noted that classroom congestion persists as enrollment increases and existing classrooms deteriorate due to wear and tear and natural disasters.

The study noted that access to electricity remains a problem in some Philippine schools, with more than 39,000 schools needing upgrades of their connections to support ventilation and prevent electrical current fluctuations and fires in 2020.

Underfunded classrooms

For Raymond Basilio, an educator and secretary general of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines, returning to the old calendar is only a first step towards preventing learning loss, or a decline in academic skills and knowledge, that can occur due to extreme weather events.

While UNESCO recommends that countries allocate 4% to 6% of gross domestic product to education, the Philippines has never achieved this goal, spending around 3% of GDP on education, according to the Second Congressional Commission on Education, which is undertaking an assessment of the education sector.

"Since 2022, we have seen a recurring problem of underutilising the Department of Education's quick reaction fund, which is supposed to be used for repairs of classrooms damaged by typhoons and other natural calamities," said Basilio.

Reducing classroom congestion, which makes children more vulnerable to health issues during heatwaves, requires building new classrooms and hiring more personnel, including school nurses or doctors, instead of overburdening teachers.

As public schools grapple for funding, teachers often step up to fill the gaps.

Some teachers have to work in school clinics or counselling offices without additional pay.

"Despite having other tasks, teachers will prioritise their students and intervene whenever there are gaps, including providing additional services in schools, even without being professionally equipped for these tasks," said Basilio.

In some schools, Basas said teachers will spend their own money to buy electric fans or raise donations to improve ventilation in classrooms.

Climate-resilient schools

Both Basas and Basilio believe addressing climate risks in Philippine schools is an infrastructure issue.

"A truly resilient Philippine classroom is one with sufficient ventilation, because not all schools can provide air conditioning. We should also ensure that schools are away from flood zones. Those are just the basics," said Basilio.

Instead of reacting to heatwaves and storms as they happen, Basas suggested making crucial changes along the way.

"Are school buildings heat-proof and earthquake-proof? If it rains, are we assured that campuses will not be submerged in flood? We still have a lot of those cases in the Philippines that we have yet to resolve," he said.

The Department of Education, however, said resolving the country's classroom shortage may take more than half a century.

In the meantime, teachers' groups have urged the government to improve hybrid learning options for climate-vulnerable schools, which includes improving poor and marginalised students' access to digital learning.

(Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley.)