A week before World Teachers’ Day (WTD) on Oct. 5, a group urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to give public school teachers “more time allotment” for lesson preparations and other teaching-related duties.

Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines (ACT) Spokesperson Ruby Bernardo, in a statement issued on Wednesday, Sept. 28, said that the DepEd should give public school teachers “sufficient time” to prepare their lessons, check outputs, compute grades and monitor the progress of their students.

This, she added, will help ensure that quality teaching can be “delivered and education recovery” be realized.

“Overworking our teachers is counterproductive to education recovery,” Bernardo said.

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/15/groups-mourn-death-of-overworked-teacher-urged-deped-to-address-workload-concerns/

Teachers, she added, need less teaching and non-teaching load. “We need more time to prepare our lessons and fulfil other teaching-related duties to be able to deliver quality teaching,” she stressed.

DepEd, Bernardo said, has “maxed up” all public school teachers with six hours of daily teaching and administrative duties --- with others even given workload that exceeds six hours.

“Non-stop teaching for six hours daily is simply inhumane,” Bernardo said. “It is equivalent to six to nine classes handled daily for 40 minutes to one hour class time, depending on the subject taught,” she added.

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/12/deped-urged-to-implement-a-six-hour-workday-for-teachers-nationwide/

ACT said that DepEd to ease public school teachers’ workload citing that theirs is the “heaviest compared to the workload of teachers” in local private schools or public universities, and their counterparts in neighboring countries.

For instance, ACT noted that the weekly teaching load of teachers in De La Salle Zobel High School, University of Santo Tomas Senior High School, and Xavier High School only amounts to 10 to 12 hours while another 10 to 12 hours is allotted for meetings, seminars, and consultations.

At the University of the Philippines, meanwhile, faculty members teach for 12 hours weekly, while those at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines have 15 hours weekly of regular teaching load.

ACT said that basic education teachers in neighboring countries teach for fewer hours weekly, as in Japan and Australia with 22 to 24 hours, Vietnam with 13 hours, Cambodia with 25 hours, and Indonesia with 18 hours.

“In reality, lesson preparation, checking of outputs and grade computation are brought home and done beyond work hours without proper compensation, while this should not be case as these are integral duties of a teacher,” Bernardo said.

“At the end of the day, it is our teachers’ physical and mental well-being which is sacrificed,” she added.

ACT noted that the 1967 Magna Carta for Public School Teachers provides for a maximum of six hours of teaching time per day while the remaining two hours of eight-hour work should be devoted to lesson preparation and other teaching-related duties.

“Instead of easing our workload, the DepEd is wielding the Magna Carta to squeeze us to the hilt,” Bernardo lamented.

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/15/deped-to-launch-balancing-tool-to-address-workload-issues-of-teachers/

Instead of recognizing the six-hour rule as the maximum limit, ACT alleged that DepEd deemed it as the teachers’ regular load. “It is their way to make it appear that there are excess teachers in some schools that they can transfer to others wherein shortage is really flagrant,” she added.

Teachers, Benardo said, need their rightful time to rest. “If we want the quality of teaching to improve, we need to reduce to four hours the daily time allotment for actual teaching, while the other four hours should be used for lesson preparations and other teaching-related duties,” she added.

To push for the reduction of public school teachers’ teaching time to four hours daily, ACT Teachers Partylist has filed in the 19th Congress House Bill 545 to amend the 55-year-old Magna Carta for Public School Teachers.

The Philippines is currently observing National Teachers’ Month (NTM) which started on Sept. 5 and will culminate on Oct. 5 which is also the WTD and National Teachers’ Day (NTD).

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/05/ph-celebration-of-2022-national-teachers-month-starts-on-sept-5/