The Department of Education (DepEd) is all set for the opening of the new school year with its issuance of the school calendar and activities for School Year (SY) 2020-2021, composed of 203 class days starting with the formal school opening on Aug. 24, 2020 until the end of school year on April 30, 2021.

Education Secretary Leonor Briones issued DepEd Order No. 007, series of 2020, or the “School Calendar and Activities for School Year 2020-2021” in line with the agency’s commitment to “ensure educational continuity amid the challenges” – particularly those brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic

“Education must continue to give hope and stability, contribute to the normalization of activities in the country, facilitate development of our learners and bring back normalcy to their lives, but health and safety of learners and school personnel are of utmost importance and must be protected at all times,” Briones said.

Briones explained that the push back in the formal school opening by nearly three months – from the traditional opening on the first Monday of June to August – is “intended to afford DepEd enough time to undertake the necessary preparations in what will be an extraordinarily challenging school year.”

DepEd issued the school calendar and activities after getting the approval of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF). “School opening will not necessarily mean traditional face-to-face learning in classroom,” Briones said. The physical opening of schools, she stressed, “will depend on the risk severity grading or classification of a locality” pursuant to guidelines of the Department of Health (DOH), IATF, or the Office of the President (OP).