Most schools in the Philippines start their classes at 7AM. While this would give more time for the subjects in school, some students get little benefit from this.

Because of early classes, the students have to wake up early resulting to sleep deprivation. This can affect their performance in school. Most students are sleepy during classes. Some students arrive late, because of the heavy traffic, especially if the student lives a long distance away from the school. Another thing to consider is that some students have extra co-curricular activities after classes. With the number of requirements needed to be done, students tend to go to sleep late. Adding this to the fact that students need to wake up early shows that the students fail to achieve 8-10 hours of sleep.

According to a research by Diana Zuckerman Ph.D, students starting and undergoing puberty tend to have a change in their time of sleep. Some tend to sleep as late as 12AM. An article in Consumer Affairs discusses the results of a poll by the National Sleep Foundation that focuses on the sleep patterns of U.S. teenagers. According to the survey, “only 20 percent of adolescents get the recommended nine hours of sleep on school nights,” and 45% of the respondents have less than eight hours of sleep. There are also other consequences of sleep deprivation, as seen by the results where “28% of high school students fall asleep in school, 22% fall asleep doing homework, and 14% arrive late or miss school because they oversleep.”

Logan Judy in an article for The Exponent (2014) states that "Early classes aren’t necessarily the path to better grades, especially not where 7:30 classes are concerned. They can easily have negative effects on class attendance, sleep patterns and emotional health." The National Sleep Foundation said that lack of sleep could lead to a number of consequences, such as a change in behavior and diet, a limit in the ability to learn and concentrate, as well as illnesses and accidents especially if one is behind the wheel.

While some would argue that the early time for classes is needed, we should consider starting classes at 8AM. Having this in the Philippines would solve most of the problems mentioned earlier. This would give the students not only more time to do the requirements but also more time to sleep, especially those who have other involvements in school.

SOURCES:

Diana Zuckerman: http://www.center4research.org/early-morning-classes-sleepy-students-risky-behaviors/

Consumer Affairs: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/03/sleep_teens.html

Logan Judy (2014): https://www.purdueexponent.org/opinion/article_37b56d7f-1d1d-5caa-a003-7f070ee8e749.html

Sleep Foundation: https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep