THE SENATE is set to hold an inquiry on proposals to return to the old school calendar, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said.

“We normalize schooling in the country. Normalize in the sense that we have gone back to face to face classes. However, that is a very basic part of our schooling culture. The issue of summer break, in fact it’s not summer, it’s a rainy break. The break of students right now is between June, July, August and under this new calendar students will be going back to school by August,” the chairman of the Committee on Basic Education and Culture said.

“We found out that 80 percent of our constituents want to bring back the traditional summer break wherein our learners will go on break in April and May,” he added.

The senator said that students can spend more time with their family and their peers during the April and May break.

“In the development of a child it is important also to socialize. We are going to conduct a hearing as to the benefits and other issues pertaining to when our learners should take a break. We will discuss the issues and benefits. If the benefit outweighs some of the issues then we will talk about how to transition slowly,” the senator said.

“Admittedly, we cannot do that overnight, we have to transition slowly. That is one of the trivial, simple but one of the most talked about issues in education,” he added.