The Department of Education (DepED) was once urged by a group to “liberate” the teachers from administrative tasks and to implement the six-hour workday for all public schools nationwide.
“Public school teachers are not required to spend the whole eight hours in school,” the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) said.
The group noted that this was clarified through a Civil Service Commission (CSC) resolution issued in 2008 that recognizes the “peculiarity” of the roles and tasks of public school teachers which is entirely different from those of other government employees.
“While teachers are not exempted from the eight-hour workday rule for state workers, we are required to stay within the school premises for only six hours a day,” TDC said.
However, the group pointed out that despite this, many DepED field officials “failed” to implement the policy.
“In some schools, for instance, teachers were not allowed to leave school premises after their sixth hour classroom duty and even made to stay for another hour supposedly for lunch break,” the group said.
“But after the lunch break, they were still required to stay for another two hours purportedly to complete the eight hour-workday, even if their actual classes were designed to fit in the six-hour schedule,” it added.
TDC also noted that teachers in some areas were given options if they would stay for six hours or eight hours, those who opted to stay for only six hours are required to submit reports or means of verification.
“These ridiculous impositions turn the provision into additional burden, defeating entirely its purpose,” TDC said.
The group said that it has been receiving reports as well that in some schools, officials conveniently evade the provision by invoking the agreement of school administrators, teachers, students, and parents as if such an agreement takes precedence over the law itself.
“Still, in other cases, deductions due to ‘undertime’ were done on teachers who availed of the provision,” the group said.
TDC pointed out that these practices “violate the letter and the spirit” of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, the CSC Resolution, and the subsequent DepEd issuances.