MARCOS APPROVES 3-TERM SCHOOL CALENDAR FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS STARTING JUNE 8

June 8, 2026. That is the date public school students are expected to walk back into their classrooms under a completely different academic structure.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has approved the shift to a three-term school calendar for basic education, beginning School Year 2026–2027. No more four grading quarters. The entire K-10 public school system will be reorganized into three terms — June through September, October through December, then January through April.

The approval came out of the 8th meeting of the Economy and Development Council on March 19, chaired by Marcos himself at Malacañang. The Social Development Committee at the cabinet level also endorsed the plan before it reached the ED Council.

WHAT THE NEW CALENDAR ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

Term 1 opens June 8, 2026 and runs to September 15. Term 2 picks up September 16 and closes December 18. Term 3 begins January 4, 2027 and ends April 8. Summer break falls from April 9 to May 9 — about one month.

The summer break under the new system is roughly half of what Filipino families are used to. School year ends in April instead of March, and the break caps at one month before the next cycle begins in June.

Each term is anchored by an instructional block running 54 to 61 days, followed by a two-week Enrichment Block built for remediation, teacher wellness, grade computation, parent-teacher conferences, and co-curricular activities. During the Enrichment Block, teachers cannot be assigned regular teaching or administrative duties — it is a protected period.

Total class days: 201, spread across three terms instead of four quarters. The minimum 180-day instructional requirement is maintained.

WHY THE PUSH FOR THIS

The stated rationale comes largely from the data coming out of the Second Congressional Commission on Education. EDCOM 2 found that only 30 percent of Grade 3 students were proficient in 2024. By Grade 6, that number had dropped to 0.56 percent. By Grade 10, it was 1.36 percent. By Grade 12, 0.47 percent.

EDCOM 2 also documented approximately 150 legislated activities — government-mandated observances, programs, and events — crowding the academic year and eating into actual class time. In SY 2023–2024, an estimated 53 class days were lost to calamities and disruptions.

The trimester design concentrates learning into longer, uninterrupted blocks. Fewer grading cycles, fewer transitions, and structured catch-up periods built into the calendar rather than tacked on at the end of a quarter.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara framed it as a structural fix: longer and continuous learning intervals, better pacing of lessons, and a reduced administrative workload for teachers. DEPDev Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, who serves as ED Council vice-chair, said the approval reflected a commitment to "evidence-based solutions to bridge educational gaps."

Marcos directed DepEd to ensure the system effectively supports struggling students, aligns with the existing SHS semester structure, and prepares all schools for full implementation — while upholding the 180-day instructional minimum.

WHO IS REQUIRED TO FOLLOW IT

The three-term calendar is mandatory for all public elementary and secondary schools, Community Learning Centers, Philippine Schools Overseas, and the Alternative Learning System.

Private schools and state universities are not required to adopt it, though they may opt in under RA 11480.

Senior High School — Grades 11 and 12 — currently runs on a semester system. Marcos has directed DepEd to align the new trimester structure with SHS, but how exactly that harmonization works has not been publicly detailed. No formal DepEd Order has been issued as of this writing.

TEACHERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE CONSULTED

This is where the timeline becomes a problem.

The proposal was first floated publicly by Secretary Angara on February 14. Three days later, Malacañang said it "needs to be further studied." That same week, DepEd itself said the plan was "not yet final" and that consultations were ongoing.

Five weeks later, it was approved.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers, the largest teachers' union in the country, called for an immediate suspension of the rollout and demanded what it called "genuine public consultations." ACT Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said the modifications to the school calendar "were hastily implemented" after teachers repeatedly requested to be included in the process. The union drew a direct comparison to K-12, which went through roughly ten years of consultations across three administrations before it was rolled out — and still ran into serious implementation problems.

Bernardo pointed out that the fundamental problems in Philippine education — classroom shortages, insufficient teachers, lack of facilities, student hunger — remain unchanged regardless of how the calendar is arranged. She asked where the voice of the ordinary teacher was in this decision.

DepEd had said consultations were ongoing. Then the approval came. Whether those consultations actually reached the ground level — the teachers who will be restructuring their lesson plans, their pacing guides, their electronic class records, and their summative assessments for three terms instead of four, starting June 8 — is a question the department has not yet answered publicly.