A YOUTH group strongly opposed the reported plan of the Department of Education to extend the school year and cut short the two-month summer break of students.

The National Union of Students-High School said that learners are not robots, and that they have other obligations to attend to, “such as families, personal well-being, mental health and even just the concern of having food on their tables for the day.”

“This consideration to extend the school year is but another misguided effort to address the ails of our failing education system. In reality, the number of weeks within a quarter does not equate to more learning if the learning system the students undergo is inherently unconducive and ineffective,” NUSP-HS said.

The group argued that extending the school year would jeopardize the finances of the students because they would have to purchase more load and retrieve more modules, among others.

It said that the implementation of distance learning “was doomed to fail” from the very beginning.

The group pointed out that DepEd has yet to make a comprehensive assessment of distance learning.

“They must swiftly and comprehensively address the problems posed by both the pandemic and distance learning and not enact band-aid solutions that will only incur more harm,” NUSP-HS said.

“After a tumultuous school year, DepEd must take the effort to go outside their offices to understand the plight of the students and stringently evaluate the year’s outcomes to develop a clear and all-inclusive plan for the following school year,” it added.