'Positive move': Group welcomes DepEd's push to relieve teachers of 4Ps duties

The move of the Department of Education (DepED) to relieve public school teachers of duties related to the implementation of the 4Ps program under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) was welcomed by a group of education workers.

“Non-teaching duties are added burdens that take up the time of our teachers better devoted to lesson preparations, improving learning quality and other teaching-related tasks,” said Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Chairperson Vladimer Quetua in a statement issued Monday, Oct. 24.

For ACT, DepEd’s decision was a “positive move” since all advisers with learners who are 4Ps beneficiaries must monitor their class attendance and ensure that absences do not exceed the allowable number for them to continue to be eligible for the program.

“Each school also appoints a teacher to be the 4Ps coordinator who serves as the focal person for the program, monitors the implementation of the program and ensures the school’s filling up and collection of Compliance Verification forms,” Quetua explained.

Meanwhile, ACT also urged the agency anew to push for the removal of other non-teaching duties imposed by other agencies, local government units, and the DepEd itself.

In a letter dated Oct. 20, DepEd Undersecretary and Chief of Staff Epimaco Densing III wrote a letter addressed to DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo.

In the said letter, DepEd informed DSWD that “we shall no longer allow our teachers to facilitate the monitoring of 4Ps in their respective institutions of learning.”

This, DepEd said, is in line with its continued effort to “lessen the teachers’ non-teaching workload” by removing administrative tasks from their stead and the agency’s thrust that “teachers shall focus on teaching.”