(ACT) ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers wants public school teachers’ workloads to be lighter so they can devote more time to planning lessons, evaluating student work, and keeping track of their development.
Ruby Bernardo, the group’s spokesperson said, “The Department of Education has maxed up all public school teachers with 6 hours daily teaching and administrative duties, with others even given workload that exceeds six hours. Katumbas po ito ng 30 oras ng pagtuturo sa loob ng isang linggo, kung kaya sobra na ang pagod at paos ng ating mga guro sa isang buwan pa lamang na pagtuturo. Labis-labis po ang trabahong ito kumpara sa trabaho ng mga guro sa private schools, state colleges and universities at maging mga paaralan sa ibang bansa.
According to ACT, the weekly teaching load for faculty members at Xavier High School, University of Santo Tomas Senior High School, and De La Salle Zobel High School is between 10 and 12 hours, with an additional 10 to 12 hours set aside for meetings, seminars, and consultations.
Faculty members at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines have a typical teaching load of 15 hours per week, compared to 12 hours at the University of the Philippines.
Furthermore, Bernardo said, “Non-stop teaching for six hours daily is simply inhumane. It is equivalent to 6 to 9 classes handled daily for 40 minutes to one hour class time, depending on the subject taught. Dapat i-konsidera rin na ang mga klaseng ito ay bumibilang mula 45 hanggang 60 estudyante o higit pa. Sobrang piga na sa pagod ang ating mga guro pagkatapos ng maghapon na pagtuturo, at ang nalalabing dalawang oras ng trabaho sa isang araw ay napupunta pa paggawa ng mga reports at non-teaching duties.”
Additionally, Bernardo said, “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 the case as these are integral duties of a teacher. Malaking panahon pa ang ginugugol ng mga guro sa lesson preparation dahil hindi na pwede ngayon ang chalk-talk lamang kundi kailangan ng mga visual presentations at iba’t ibang class activities. Mahabang oras din ang kailangan para mag-check ng output dahil malaki ang mga klase. At the end of the day, it is our teachers’ physical and mental well-being which is sacrificed.”
According to the 1967 Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, teachers should dedicate no more than six hours of an eight-hour shift to teaching, with the other two hours spent on lesson planning and other teaching-related tasks.
Bernardo said, “Instead of easing our workload, the DepEd is wielding the Magna Carta to squeeze us to the hilt. Instead of recognizing the 6-hour rule as the maximum limit, they have 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 said “Overworking our teachers is counterproductive to education recovery. We need less teaching and non-teaching load. We need more time to prepare our lessons and fulfill other teaching-related duties to be able to deliver quality teaching. We need our 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.”
