The Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom II) has found that teachers have been feeling “overburdened” by the additional “ancillary and administrative” tasks given to them by the Department of Education and various government agencies, which could eventually hamper their professional development.
In its periodic report titled “Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Education,” the commission complied all the tasks assigned to public school teachers by virtue of laws, department orders, and policies. These included making them coordinators for campus journalism programs, school grievance committees, boy and girl scouts, “Gulayan sa Paaralan” program, Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, disaster reduction, and sports programs.
The report said teachers have conveyed that given the additional tasks, their working hours are insufficient, however, they also find it challenging to voice these concerns within the school settings.
Teachers also observed that the tasks given to the bids and awards committee have also been passed on to them, Edcom II said.
“In other words, the prescribed six-hour teaching load, coupled with the designated two-hour allocation for teaching-related tasks and preparation, is routinely exceeded just to meet the demands of daily deliverables,” it noted.
Edcom II added that aside from not being in line with the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, the non-teaching tasks could hinder them from delivering quality education and prevent them from pursuing their professional development.
It requested the Department of Budget and Management to create non-teaching positions to undertake the ancillary and administrative tasks, which would result in 5,000 positions deployed in 2020. The report however pointed out that such deployment addressed only a fraction of the non-teaching and administrative tasks identified by DepEd.
Public school teachers that are underpaid and overloaded form a recipe for educational disaster that the DepEd should’ve seen way before Edcom II pointed it out. Now that the spotlight has on it, perhaps the DepEd, along with all the other government agencies that have become fond of adding work without considering what is already being asked of our teachers, can reconsider their priorities and put aside funds for additional personnel who can ease the burden being hoisted upon the country’s teachers.*
