A teacher in the Philippines decided one very hot day that the only way to beat the heat was to escape it.

So, he rounded up his students, had them carry their chairs, walked them outside his classroom to a spot shaded by the long shadow of a school building, and held his class there.

Mr Joel Casungcad, who teaches at the Lutucan Integration National High School in Sariaya town, 120km south of the capital Manila, posted on Facebook photos of his students taking their exams at an open field.

“Avoid the heat, prevent cheating,” Mr Casungcad wrote in his Facebook post.

His photos went viral, as his post was picked up by news organisations in the Philippines.

“It was so hot on Thursday. I was worried that they might not be able to focus on their exams, that they’d just end up fanning themselves. So, I thought about giving their exams outdoors,” Mr Casungcad told the radio station Bombo Radyo.

“It’s a naturalistic approach,” he told the newspaper Balita.

“Outside, there are trees and fresh air.”

He said his close to three dozen students were outside from 7am to 11am, “just before the sun reaches its peak in the sky, and we lose whatever shade our buildings can give”.

The Philippines, along with many other nations in Asia, is being scorched by a heatwave that one prominent climatologist said could be the continent’s worst ever.

Temperatures in India, Myanmar and Thailand have been hitting 45 deg C.

In the Philippines, the mercury has been rising to about 37 deg C. The country’s students have been particularly affected, as their school buildings bake in the heat.

Close to 150 high school students in a province south of Manila suffered heatstroke after a power outage hit their school in April. Seven of them fainted, and two had to be taken to a hospital.

In March, more than 100 students were taken to a hospital after they suffered heat exhaustion following a fire drill that saw them standing under a searing sun in mid-afternoon.

The Department of Education on Saturday said schools could call off in-person classes as a way to cope with the summer heat.

Mr Michael Poa, the department’s spokesman, said principals and school heads were reminded that they have the “authority and responsibility to suspend in-person classes and switch to alternative delivery modes if it is really hot and already affecting the health of our learners and personnel”.

“We also don’t want our learners’ health to be affected, especially with the very hot temperature we are experiencing, which is why we are again reminding our school heads that they can immediately switch to alternative mediums,” he said.

Mr Raymond Basilio, secretary-general of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer the government should consider reverting to the old school calendar where classes start in June, to avoid holding classes during the hot and dry months from March to May.

On May 11, 2020, the government decided to move the opening of the 2020 to 2021 school year from June to August 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The August to April school calendar was continued by Vice-President Sara Duterte, who is also the education secretary, for the 2022 to 2023 school year.