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Suspend mandatory physical reporting of all teachers, DepEd told
Suspend mandatory physical reporting of all teachers, DepEd told
A group of education workers on Monday, April 18, once again called for the suspension of the Department of Education (DepEd) directive requiring the mandatory physical reporting of teachers in schools under Alert Level 1.
“Forcing a blanket policy among teachers—and without any prior consultation—unnecessarily puts teachers in more challenging conditions, without any guarantee of support from DepEd, and while further impeding education delivery,” Alliance of Concerned Teachers - National Capital Region (ACT-NCR) Union President Vladimer Quetua.
On the first day of the implementation of DM 29 s. 2022 in most Metro Manila schools, leaders of ACT NCR Union also went to the DepEd-NCR office to demand a dialogue regarding these issues and to register their call for the suspension of the implementation of mandatory physical reporting of all teachers in areas under Alert Level 1.
Last week, the group publicly called for the suspension of the order and instead pushed for flexible and needs-based, and -responsive working arrangements for public school teachers.
ACT argued that the nature of teachers’ work “vastly differs” from that of other government employees—with the former’s being closely tied to the presence of students in schools, which is currently still at a minimum due to the “slow expansion” of limited face-to-face classes.
The group also argued that schools are “not ready” to host teachers employing distance learning modalities nor are schools equipped with sufficient health measures to protect employees from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a survey conducted by ACT-NCR, 31.6 percent of teacher-respondents said that the school “will not provide hygiene kits to teachers” while 36.7 percent are “unsure if the school has any plan to do so.”
Quetua said that in the last two years, teachers were “forced” to adapt to the pandemic.
“We have procured internet connections at home, we have set up a system for handling multiple learning modalities for our students, only for it to be completely disregarded and disrupted by this new order that was implemented without enough thought and preparation,” he explained.
The group also slammed DepEd officials who were “terribly blind” to the conditions of teachers and “deaf to our justified calls.”
Given this, ACT-NCR Union reiterated its call on the agency to suspend the memorandum’s implementation and discuss with its employees’ duly recognized representatives a working arrangement that is “more responsive” to the needs of education and “less onerous” to public school teachers.
Quetua said that even before the DepEd memo, teachers have been coming to school regularly to do various tasks such as printing, retrieving, and distributing modules to prepare their schools for its eventual re-opening as well as attending meetings --- among others.
“We have gone above and beyond to ensure learning continuity amid the health and socio-economic crises, often shouldering the massive burden of the state’s duty to the youth,” Quetua said. “It’s high time that DepEd officials listen to our demands,” he added.
RELATED STORY:
https://mb.com.ph/2022/04/18/metro-manila-teachers-lament-weak-internet-service-in-schools-survey/