A teachers group on Wednesday urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to “listen” to the educators as they are the frontliners in education when the classes in public schools nationwide open next month.
The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC), a 30,000-strong group, once again appealed to the leadership of DepEd to listen to the reports from the ground to see the real situation of schools weeks before the formal opening of School Year (SY) 2020-2021 on Oct. 5.
TDC National Chairperson Benjo Basas underscored the need for DepEd to take into consideration the feedback and concerns coming from the teachers themselves because at the end of the day, they will be the ones who will be forced to find ways to implement the policies of the DepEd Central Office.
“Sa bandang huli, ang anumang pagkukulang sa mga polisiya, sa badyet at sa pagpapatupad ng lahat ng plano, ang pobreng guro ang magpupuno. (Ultimately, any shortcomings in policies, budgets and the implementation of all plans, it is the poor teacher who will make up for these,)” said TDC National Chairperson Benjo Basas.
In particular, TDC is urging DepEd to resolve issues on the modular learning and self-learning modules (SLMs) before a bigger funding is used to reproduce these. Education Secretary Leonor Briones had admitted that printed modular learning is a challenge for many DepEd divisions because this can be “really expensive.”
Modular printed SLMs, according to DepEd, is the most preferred choice of millions of parents and students as an alternative learning delivery modality. This is also the reason why DepEd regional offices and schools division offices are scrambling to reproduce printed SLMs for the past few weeks.