Unburden teachers of non-teaching tasks
REMOVE NON-ESSENTIAL SCHOOL ACTIVITIES and TASKS TO MAKE AUGUST-MAY SCHOOL YEAR WORK – Press Release from ACT Party-List
I laud the Department of Education for deciding to open the school year in August, as I suggested a month ago. Now, I present some suggestions on how to make the August to May school year work effectively for all stakeholders – school administrators, teachers, students, and parents.
· Unload the classroom teachers of all the non-teaching administrative, health-related, and social welfare responsibilities. They are teachers. They are not nurses, social workers, nor administrative staff.
· Tinatambakan ang teachers ng mga trabahong hindi pang-teacher. Trabaho ng teacher ang mag-lecture, maghanda sa pamamagitan ng paggawa ng lesson plan, at i-evaluate ang kanyang trabaho sa pamamagitan ng pagsusumite ng monitoring and evaluation reports.
· Paigsiin ang sembreak. Alisin lahat ng mga non-academic extra-curricular events sa activities calendar. Marami iyan. Nababawasan ang contact time sa mga estudyante dahil sa maraming aktibidad na dagdag-trabaho sa mga guro.
· Devote August to March to classroom contact time activities. Cut down on extra-curricular activities like commemorations and observances, so that contact time in classrooms is maximized.
· Relocate toward the end of the school calendar, in April and May, all the teachers’ seminars, the student government elections and co-curricular activities like the science fairs, quiz bees, DepEd-Metrobank Math Challenge, National Festival of Talents, the National Schools Press Conference, and the sports competitions.
· Principals and their teachers should spend much less time attending meetings called by the superintendents, supervisors, and regional offices. All essential meetings should not interfere with classroom sessions.
· Teachers should also not be doing income-generation activities during school hours like selling products or participating in SEC-flagged investment scams.
If doing all that is not enough, DepEd can also ask Malacanang and Congress to cancel or modify all the special non-working national holidays and local holidays from August this year to May next year. (END)
